State Secretary's last dinner in Dublin hosted by Clinton Foundation donor

May 2nd correction: Chargé d'Affaires John Hennessey-Niland from the Dublin US Embassy met Hillary Clinton at airport, not Teneo CEO Declan Kelly (See photo description here). So I've deleted all references to that from this article.

May 1st update - Despite "ethics agreement" that a "former and future" Clinton Foundation director negotiated while at the State Department, Clinton Health Access Initiative kept Irish government's increase of funding a secret. Yesterday, Judicial Watch posted an article about my Teneo reporting. "Reporter Ron Brynaert is one example of this new breed of investigative gunslinger," Micah Morrison wrote. "A former executive editor for Raw Story, Brynaert has been digging deep into the Teneo connection and publishing his findings at his blog, '-gate news' and on Twitter."

April 28th update - After State Sec. Hillary Clinton announced "partnership" with Irish government in 2010, Irish Aid donated over $5 million to the Clinton Foundation from 2011 to 2014. More information added on State Department funding the Front Line Defenders - which was co-founded by Denis O'Brien - through a program created by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. Also, The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago, "Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, who heads a mobile-phone network provider called Digicel, won a $2.5 million award in 2011 from a program run by the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development to offer mobile money services in post-earthquake Haiti. Mr. O’Brien has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation since its launch." However, WSJ reporters oddly claimed that it was "unclear" that donations were made when Clinton was at the State Department, and won't fully explain why they couldn't confirm what others have reported for years. O'Brien's media holding company, Communicorp Group Ltd, has also donated money to the Clinton Foundation.

A Digicel press release announced on June 23, 2011, "Digicel, the best value mobile operator in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific, has today been announced as one of the main partners with the U.S Department of State to support the Caribbean IdEA Marketplace." Digicel Group Chief Executive Officer Colm Delves posed with "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the launch of the Caribbean IdEA Marketplace at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica," as seen in the photograph at the firm's website.

"CIM will be implemented in the context of the International diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA), which was launched by the U.S Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, on May 17th in Washington DC at the Global Diaspora Forum Other partners include the Inter-American Development Bank and Scotiabank."

As I reported last week, Teneo CEO Declan Kelly - who helped raise at least $1,500,000 on behalf of "Irish-Americans for Hillary" for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign - was on the Board of Directors for US Ireland Fund and his firm did public relations work for the Belfast fundraising event and may have helped fund, host or sponsor it. Huma Abedin still helped plan Clinton's trips while working for the State Department and Teneo from June of 2012 to February of 2013.

"I was very happy to be along with Hillary Clinton during her last visit to Ireland as Secretary of State, in December 2012," Niall O'Dowd wrote for Irish Central on June 11, 2014. "It was also on that the trip that I realized she was certain to run for president in 2016."

Along with Teneo co-founder Paul Keary, O'Dowd is a member of "Irish-Americans for Hillary" - the group behind Kelly's fundraisers. Declan Kelly first met Hillary Clinton when he had "arranged an introduction" through O'Dowd years ago "at an Irish America magazine event in New York."

"As she writes in her new book, 'Hard Choices,' where she reserves several pages for her Irish work, the place still has a strong hold on her," O'Dowd adds, before quoting Hillary Clinton reminiscing about the party held in Belfast to honor her and help raise funds for the Worldwide Ireland Fund.

"My final trip as Secretary of State in December 2012 brought me again to Northern Ireland, a place where people have worked hard and suffered much to leave their past conflicts behind.

At a luncheon in Belfast, happily surrounded by old friends and acquaintances, we reminisced about how far we’d come together."

Then O'Dowd continues, "There was lots of reminiscing the day before in Dublin too when about 12 of us old-time Hillary supporters sat with her in a Dublin restaurant at a dinner hosted by businessman Denis O’Brien."

Digicel Group Chairman and Founder Denis O'Brien is a telecom billionaire who has reportedly given millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and was honored with a Clinton Global Citizen award just two months before Hillary's trip to Ireland. Former President Bill "Clinton and Mr O’Brien formed a close working relationship in Haiti where the former acted as UN special envoy, and where Digicel has become the country’s largest foreign investor ever – pumping $600 million (€443 million) into an economy devastated by the 2010 earthquake," Irish Times reported in October of 2013.

However, as Kevin Sullivan, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger reported for The Washington Post a few weeks ago, O'Brien and "the Clintons are facing a growing backlash that too little has been accomplished in the past five years and that some of the most high-profile projects they have backed — including a just-opened Marriott, another luxury hotel and the industrial park — have helped foreign investors and Haiti’s wealthy elites more than its poor."

O'Brien is also the chairman of Front Line Defenders, which "was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the specific aim of protecting Human Rights Defenders, people working in hostile conditions to uphold any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)." In February of 2012, founder Mary Lawlor noted that the Embattled NGO Assistance Fund "is the brainchild of Hillary Clinton" and that they get money from the US State Department and O'Brien gave them €3 million when she started the group.

A 2013 press release by the Front Line Defenders referred to O'Brien as "Chairman and co-founder", and he is still on the Board of Trustees. His biography at its website states, "Denis O'Brien is Chairman of the Digicel Group, one of the fastest growing cellular companies in the world. Mr. O’Brien is one of Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs with extensive investments across several sectors including international telecoms, radio, media, property, aircraft leasing, golf and other leisure interests. He founded the Communicorp Group which has a portfolio of media and broadcasting-related companies in Ireland and seven other European countries. Denis was Chairman of the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Ireland and is Chairman of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He is on the US Board of Concern Worldwide. In 2000 he established The O’Brien Foundation to assist disadvantaged communities in Ireland and internationally."

The US State Department announced on July 1, 2011, "Last July at the Community of Democracies meeting in Krakow, Secretary Clinton announced that the United States would create an international fund to support embattled Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and invited like-minded governments to join in this global effort."

"One year later, the Department of State, together with twelve other democratic nations spanning the globe, launched the Lifeline: Embattled NGOs Assistance Fund in a meeting in Vilnius with the international consortium of organizations who will be implementing the Fund’s activities.

The Department of State is honored to partner with Australia, Benin, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in this unique effort to protect and support civil society worldwide. Together they have seeded the Lifeline Fund with over $4 million to begin a multi-year effort."

Hours before the dinner hosted by O'Brien, Secretary of State Clinton said in a speech, "We currently are providing emergency support to dozens of individual human rights activists around the world, who run into trouble because of their work. And the United States has created a fund – to which more than a dozen governments and two private foundations have contributed – to support embattled NGOs with legal representation, communication technologies like cell phones and internet access, and other forms of quick support."

According to the latest entry of "Front Line Defenders Annual Reports & Financial Information", it still receives donations from the Lifeline: Embattled NGO Assistance Fund. It also is supported by The Ireland Funds, which is a client of Teneo, and CEO Declan Kelly was on its Board of Directors when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was honored at a Belfast luncheon the day after the Dublin dinner, as I reported in March.

Front Line Defenders also receives funding from the Ireland government department Irish Aid, which has donated $5-to-10 million to the Clinton Foundation. On September 21, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at an event called "1,000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future" where she welcomed Ireland Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin.

"Thank you, Secretary Clinton, for those kind words about the Irish, but also for your inspiring words about the challenge that lies ahead and that is the focal point of this gathering here this morning," Michael Martin said. "And we thank your people who have worked so hard behind the scenes with Irish Aid and with my colleague, Minister Power, Peter Power, Minister of State Peter Power, in terms of the organization of this partnership with its focus on undernutrition."

A US State Department fact sheet on the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Framework, announced that Clinton and Martin would be "joined by leaders from governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector" at the September 21st, 2010 event.

At The Irish Times, Simon Carswell reported on April 24, 2015 about the money donated to the Clinton Foundation: "The Department of Foreign Affairs said this money was provided to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a charity affiliated with the foundation, for work on health promotion projects in Mozambique (€1 million) and Lesotho (€4 million) between 2011 and 2014. A further €170 million of Irish Aid went to the health ministries in those countries on projects that involved personnel from the Clintons’ health charity.

Despite agreeing in 2008 that the Clinton Foundation would inform the State Department if a foreign country chose to "increase materially its commitment" to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), it didn't. As revealed in a 2010 Irish government review of the partnership, the funding was supposed to end that year, but Irish Aid "recommend[ed] that the Partnership should be formally extended until 2015."

Last week, Irish Aid told the Irish Times that it ended up donating €4 million to CHAI from 2011 to 2015 for "work on health promotion projects" in Lesotho. A March 6, 2012 fact sheet at the US State Department's website notes, "A partnership framework that is aligned with the National Strategic Plan was signed in August 2009 by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Government of Lesotho."

But even though referring to Irish Aid, the US State Department "fact sheet" doesn't specifically mention its partnership with the Clinton Foundation which began years before Obama was elected: "The donor community is collaborating with the Government of Lesotho in a massive effort to address the HIV epidemic. Key international stakeholders include PEPFAR, UN agencies, Irish AID, other international donors, and dozens of non-governmental organizations."

On March 19, 2015, Jonathan Allen reported for Reuters, "In 2008, Hillary Clinton promised Barack Obama, the president-elect, there would be no mystery about who was giving money to her family's globe-circling charities. She made a pledge to publish all the donors on an annual basis to ease concerns that as secretary of state she could be vulnerable to accusations of foreign influence."

"At the outset, the Clinton Foundation did indeed publish what they said was a complete list of the names of more than 200,000 donors and has continued to update it," Allen continued. "But in a breach of the pledge, the charity's flagship health program, which spends more than all of the other foundation initiatives put together, stopped making the annual disclosure in 2010, Reuters has found."

Allen added, "In response to questions from Reuters, officials at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and the foundation confirmed no complete list of donors to the Clintons' charities has been published since 2010. CHAI was spun off as a separate legal entity that year, but the officials acknowledged it still remains subject to the same disclosure agreement as the foundation."

"The State Department said it was unable to cite any instances of its officials reviewing or approving new money from any foreign governments [which included Ireland]," Reuters' Allen reported. "[CHAI spokeswoman Maura] Daley confirmed that none of the seven government donations had been submitted to the State Department for review."

Reporting for the Washington Examiner on April 30, 2015 about how the State Department is allowing the Clinton Foundation to review which Clinton emails can be released to fulfill reportedly 18 FOIA requests by the media and conservative-leaning watchdog groups, Sarah Westwood noted, "Like several other records caches that have been dribbled out of the department in recent months, the emails showed Cheryl Mills — the former Clinton White House aide who left the family foundation to serve as Hillary Clinton's chief of staff at State before returning to the charity's board — was routinely involved in official matters concerning both the foundation and the former chief executive's paid speeches."

"Mills was among several Clinton insiders who negotiated an ethics agreement between Hillary Clinton and President Obama before Clinton was appointed secretary of state," Westwood reported. "The agreement required both the Clintons and their foundation to undergo ethics reviews so State Department officials could determine whether a particular speech or event represented a real or apparent conflict of interest."

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton "raised concerns that a former and future foundation director was instrumental to orchestrating the legal footwork that allowed the Clintons to receive millions of dollars for speaking from foreign entities while Hillary Clinton served as the nation's chief diplomat." Fitton complained to the Washington Examiner, "There's no way [Mills] should have been involved in this, given where she was and where she was going."

"He noted that it's possible Mills, as a top Clinton Foundation official, is presently involved in reviewing the emails she herself wrote and was copied on during her time at the State Department, thanks to the agency's unusual arrangement with the charity.

A State Department official who requested anonymity was 'not in a position to comment on ongoing litigation' but noted that FOIA 'provides an exemption for privileged or confidential trade secrets.'

'When the department receives a FOIA request for records which contain privileged or confidential commercial or financial information and determines that it may release them, we are obligated by law to consult with the entities or persons who first provided those records to the Department, and it is our practice to do so,' the official said."

Whatever reasons or excuses provided by Obama's State Department before, during and after Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, one might conclude that the Irish government was being more forthcoming than the US government and the Clinton Foundation.

On April 17, 2015, at the Wall Street Journal, James V. Grimaldi reported, "Potentially any foreign government could make multimillion-dollar donations to the Clinton family’s largest philanthropic venture, a global public-health charity, according to a new policy put in place this week." Defending this new move, "Officials of the Clinton health charity, which employs 1,500 workers in more than 30 countries, said the more lenient policy came because 'foreign governments are among the largest funders of global health programs.'"

"Mr. O’Brien has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation since its launch," James V. Grimaldi, Rebecca Ballhaus and Peter Nicholas reported for The Wall Street Journal on April 22, 2015. "It is unclear whether Mr. O’Brien gave while Mrs. Clinton was at the State Department because of the way the foundation discloses its donations."

When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation agreed to list its contributor amounts annually on the internet, so it's breathtaking that the Wall Street Journal hasn't been at least copy-and-pasting that information once a year. Unfortunately, the way the Clinton Foundation website was set up, it's difficult to find archive links for contributors in previous years, except for the highest donors. However, simple Google searches of news organizations and blogs that did at least copy-and-paste the data reveal that Denis J. O'Brien's donations to the Clinton Foundation went from zero in December of 2008 (according to Fox News) to $10,001-to-25,000 before January of 2012 (according to The New York Times) and $1M to $5M (according to a blog reporting on a defamation lawsuit by Denis O'Brien against his first cousin Donald MacAllister who claimed in November of 2012 the billionaire was the "largest contributor to the Clinton Foundation". Interestingly, O'Brien ducked that specific accusation, even though it appears to conflict with what the Clinton Foundation has claimed.) during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State.

"[Digicel]'s founder, Denis O'Brien, is a major Clinton Foundation contributor and chairman of the Clinton Global Initiative's Haiti Action Network, a consortium of largely private-sector partners who have committed more than $224 million to reconstruction projects," Janet Reitman reported for Rolling Stone in August of 2011.

At Breitbart.com, in an article quoting from a Fox News Channel special based on the soon-to-be-published Peter Schweizer book "Clinton Cash" (which the Wall Street Journal based their story on, too), Ian Hanchett noted, "Schweizer said, 'shortly after the Clintons began reconstruction in Haiti, and began handing out contracts, sometime during that period of 2010 or 2011 he [Digicel’s owner Denis O’Brien] made a multi-million dollar contribution to the Clinton Foundation.' And that O’Brien also arranged for three 'lucrative' speeches by Bill Clinton...Schweizer then reported, 'two of the speeches that Bill Clinton gives, actually, are sandwiched around Digicel being given a grant, by the taxpayers for $100,000 as part of the HMMI Award. At the same time, you have taxpayer money, $2 million being committed to the Digicel Foundation in Jamaica.'"

Grimaldi, Ballhaus, and Nicholas specifically noted that they couldn't reach Mr. O'Brien and that the Clinton campaign "didn't respond to request for comment", but that they did talk to a Clinton Foundation spokesman. It's unclear why the Wall Street Journal didn't specifically ask the Clinton Foundation to provide this information which they already provided once a year on the web or why it didn't contact any groups that monitor politically-related donations before publishing their story. All three Wall Street Journal reporters have ignored tweets regarding why they reported that it was "unclear" that Denis O'Brien donated to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

O'Brien also owns many Irish media outlets - and according to a 2012 Guardian article was the "largest shareholder with a 29.9% stake" in Independent News and Media (INM) - has been accused of possessing a "stranglehold" in an "attempt to silence his critics." The Irish Times reported in December, "Recently, the National Union of Journalists called on [the Irish government's Department of Communications] to 'call a halt' to what it saw as O’Brien’s threat to media diversity."

Communicorp Group Limited, "a media holding company, founded in 1989 by Irish Entrepreneur Denis O’Brien" whose "media holdings include radio stations and digital media service companies", has also donated $10,000 to 25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. According to this 2012 haiti week press release, "Lucy Gaffney of Communicorp" was an "Irish member" of the Clinton Global Initiative. Communicorp Group Limited Chairperson Lucy Gaffney is a longtime friend and associate of O'Brien, and is on Digicel's Board of Directors and "was appointed to the Board of Independent News & Media plc as a Non-Executive Director in March 2009."

On September 30, 2010, former President Bill Clinton gave a speech at the Business & Finance Outstanding Contribution to Ireland Awards in honor of Loretta Brennan Glucksman and the American Ireland Fund. In the following video, Clinton thanks Declan Kelly (who was on the US Ireland Fund's board of directors until at least 2012 and created the US-NI Mentorship Program with it - in partnership with the State Department - after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed him Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland) and Denis O'Brien - who are seated onstage together - for their introductions:



"Thank you very much first to Declan and then to Denis for telling all those lies about me," Clinton joked. "I want to thank Declan Kelly who has done a really wonderful job as the Secretary of State's envoy to Northern Ireland. Hillary always did have good taste in men."

O'Brien was also in the audience when Hillary Clinton gave a speech at Dublin City University during her Ireland trip, the Irish Independent reported.

While working for Teneo and the State Department, Huma Abedin also did consulting work for the Clinton Foundation.

So, in this last Ireland trip that Abedin probably planned for the outgoing Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton attended a luncheon tied to Teneo and a dinner hosted by a top Clinton Foundation donor where she dined with fundraisers. There must have been some sort of prior planning involved by Teneo and O'Brien for both events to accommodate Clinton's schedule, although the thrust of her trip apparently was to "participate in the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)" to "discuss proposals to strengthen the OSCE’s capacity to promote comprehensive security in Eurasia, as well as meet with civil society representatives from across the OSCE region." The Belfast luncheon was held in the ballroom of a top tourist attraction, and may have been planned months in advance before it was officially announced one day apart by the State Department and a Teneo press release in November of 2012.

However - as I reported a few weeks ago - Abedin wrote to Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), "I was not asked, nor did I undertake, any work on Teneo's behalf before the State Department (and I should note that it is my understanding that Teneo does not conduct business with the Department of State). I also was not asked, nor did I provide, insights about the Department, my work with the Secretary, or any government information to which I may have had access. And, I certainly 'never gathered information from government sources for the purpose of informing investment decisions of Teneo's clients' as the Senate letter suggests."

O'Dowd's article added, "In the small private dinner setting just off Stephen’s Green in Dublin she made clear that the fire still burns. The affection for Ireland and the desire to serve again was very clear that night. 'She’s running,' said one of her longest-term supporters and friends that night 'bet on it.' She went around the table asking each of us for our memories from our Clinton campaign involvements."

"It is unclear what special knowledge or skills Ms. Abedin possessed that the government could not have easily obtained otherwise from regular government employees," Senator Grassley wrote Inspector General for the US Department of State Steve Linick on March 19, 2015 (pdf link).

Senator Grassley also asked Secretary of State John Kerry on March 19, 2015 (pdf link), "Did the Department consider any other candidates besides Ms. Abedin for the expert position requiring expert knowledge on policy, administrative, and other matters? If so, please provide the supporting documentation. If not, why not?"

"Please provide the work papers, background documents, and/or emails that concluded that Ms. Abedin’s employment as an SGE did not present any ethical concerns or conflicts of interest with her multiple private sector jobs," Grassley added in his letter to Kerry.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's last trip to Ireland seems to have been geared towards meeting up with potential fundraisers presuming she runs for president again in 2016, and her longtime aide Huma Abedin may have helped schedule it while working for the State Department.

Last month Anita Kumar reported for McClatchy, "More than 40 percent of the top donors to the Clinton family foundation are based in foreign countries, which could lead to conflict-of-interest questions for Hillary Clinton as she prepares to launch her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination."

"Mohammed Al-Amoudi, a billionaire businessman who lives in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, retired German race car driver Michael Schumacher, and Denis O’Brien, the Irish chairman of Digicel phone company, each donated between $5 million and $10 million," Kumar added.

The Ireland trip was Clinton's "final overseas trip as secretary of state. She had planned further trips but canceled them after falling and hitting her head after returning from Dublin and Belfast," Anne Gearan reported for The Washington Post on March 16, 2015. Gearan also noted that Niall O’Dowd - the co-founder of Irish America Magazine which gave Clinton a lifetime achievement award last month - "is a longtime Democratic donor and served on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 finance committee." New York Times reporter Amy Chozick neglected to mention that in her March 17, 2015 article, although she did refer to O'Dowd as a "longtime Clinton supporter." In her February 2, 2015 article, Chozick didn't even reveal that much to New York Times readers.

Last September, in an interview with Denis O'Brien, Niall O'Dowd asked, "Speaking of politicians, you are a big fan of Hillary Clinton. Do you think she is going to run for the White House in 2016?

"I’d say she is going to see what the lay of the land is, like any clever politician, to see who’s there on the Democratic side," O'Brien responded. "I think a year out from the primaries last time, not a lot of people had heard of Obama and never saw him as a serious candidate, so obviously she is waiting to see who’s there. And yes, I am a fan."

See also "Teneo worked on Belfast event honoring Hillary Clinton"; "Staff employed by State Dept. as administrative support for Clinton envoy helped launch Teneo" and "Questions linger about Clintons-linked firm co-founded by former US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland".

Developing... More to come...

Teneo worked on Belfast event honoring Hillary Clinton

May 2nd correction: Chargé d'Affaires John Hennessey-Niland from the Dublin US Embassy met Hillary Clinton at the airport, not Teneo CEO Declan Kelly (see photo description here), so I've removed the picture, video and references to that from this article.

September 3rd update: Five months after breaking this story, emails obtained by conservative group Citizens United - via lawsuits against the State Department - and sent to the Washington Post confirmed much of my reporting on this article and its follow-up, "State Secretary's last dinner in Dublin hosted by Clinton Foundation donor.". The emails show Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Teneo CEO Declan Kelly discussing and arranging a get-together, which included Irish-American fundraisers - who were invited by another Clinton aide working for the State Department, as I reported. "Maybe we can all gather for drinks/dinner and HRC can come join for as long as she can?" Abedin wrote Kelly, the fundraisers and Hillary staffers at the State Dept. on November 30, 2012, while she was being paid by the State Department, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton, personally. She also reminded everyone about the Ireland Fund lunch, which would be announced in a Teneo press release - before or after Abedin's email was sent - that same day - and knew enough information to assure fundraisers that "of course all of you are already on that list as well."

The Washington Post journalists ignored my emails, tweets, phone calls, and links to a Judicial Watch article on my exclusive reporting, didn't credit me, and left out key information. Top Clinton Foundation donor, Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien's name isn't mentioned in the Post article, and one of their sources apparently lied to them, as I will expand upon in a future article. More importantly, the Post ignored my exclusive reporting that Clinton's last international speech was to help raise money for a Teneo client, and the CEO sat on the board of the charity that honored her. On August 4th, James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal claimed that a Washington Examiner story - linking to an April article crediting my reporting - helped make it a "bad week" for Hillary Clinton.

April 22nd updates: In January, Teneo and American Ireland Funds sponsored "The Best of Ireland Gala" at the New York Athletic Club "to benefit The Children’s Medical Research Foundation and [Teneo Sports client Graeme McDowell's] GMac Foundation." Teneo CEO Declan Kelly - who was on the Board of Directors for American Ireland Funds (part of the Worldwide Ireland Funds) when they held Belfast luncheon for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 - was the "Dinner Chairman" for the January 12th, 2015 event which honored New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and former Coca-Cola Refreshments President Brian Kelley - a Clinton Foundation donor who is now CEO for Clinton Global Initiative partner Green Mountain Coffee.

Teneo co-founder Paul Keary was on the Dinner Committee for a 2011 Ireland Funds event honoring Muhammad Ali and Irial Finian, the Executive Vice President for Clinton Foundation donor and Teneo client The Coca-Cola Company. Teneo Sports also currently represents NBA superstars Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Michael Jordan, and may have been hoping to land Eli Manning and Muhammad Ali as clients.

2010 US Open golf champion Graeme McDowell reportedly attended a February 15th, 2011 fundraiser for CMRF; Kelly was Chairman of the Dinner Committee "which is responsible for the fundraising efforts" and Bill Clinton was honorary chairman. At the January 12th, 2015 event, McDowell interviewed Manning. "Teneo is proud to partner with champion golfer Graeme McDowell in a variety of ways," the firm's website states. "We are a primary sponsor of Graeme on the U.S. and European PGA Tours." Essentially, Teneo sponsors Graeme McDowell, who is also a client, and helps raise money for his charity. In February of 2013, The Ireland Independent reported, "The Irishman's long-standing relationship with blue chip brands like Mastercard, BMW, RBC, Verizon, Ecco, Audermars Piguet, Teneo and, of course, Srixon, place him in the upper echelons of golf's corporate pecking order, behind only the big three of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy." On June 30, 2013, McDowell tweeted, "Landed in NYC to play some golf with #Verizon and #Teneo." According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, McDowell has an estimated net worth of $30 million.

On April 30, 2014, Teneo sponsored an Awards Dinner honoring Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO of TIAA-CREF; Bess Joffe, Managing Director of Corporate Governance for TIAA-CREF, is a member of Declan Kelly's SDX (Shareholder-Director Exchange) Working Group and TIAA-CREF donated $100,000 to $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

April 9th update: State Department official invited Teneo CEO Declan Kelly and other fundraisers who raised millions for Hillary Clinton to accompany Secretary of State on her 2012 trip to Ireland

Former Sec. of State received Lifetime Achievement Award at same time her aide Huma Abedin worked for Teneo and State Dept.; Huma Abedin's State Department "services included advising and participating in planning for the Secretary's schedule and travel"

On November 29, 2012, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "will travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland, December 7, where she will meet with Northern Ireland officials and discuss the peace process, the trilateral US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership and economic opportunities for Northern Ireland."

"She will attend an event hosted by The Ireland Funds - - a global fundraising network supporting programs of peace and reconciliation, arts and culture, education, and community development in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland," Nuland added.

The next day, on November 30, 2012, the Worldwide Ireland Funds issued a press release to say they "would host a luncheon in her honour" on December 7th - "in Belfast’s iconic Titanic Signature Building" - so that she can be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

"Several hundred guests will attend the event including First Minister Peter Robinson, deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and former Special Economic Envoy for Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly, who was appointed by Mrs. Clinton," the press release added.

Kelly became the only US economic envoy just weeks after Irish American Democrats leader Stella O'Leary wrote for Irish Central that "Irish Americans raised millions for the election bid of Senator Clinton for the Presidency. One of our own, Declan Kelly, was at the very top of Senator Clinton's list of fundraisers."

On November 19 2008, Ireland Abroad noted just as news broke out that Hillary Clinton was a leading candidate to become Secretary of State, she had "an Irish fundraiser arranged for this weekend organized by Declan Kelly of FTI, the global business advisory firm." In November of 2007, $300,000 was raised for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign at a "$2,300-a-head" event held in Limerick, organized by Declan Kelly "on behalf of Irish-Americans for Hillary", which featured former President Bill Clinton as the guest of honor. Before both events, Irish Abroad reported, "Kelly, a native of Tipperary, has emerged as one of Clinton’s leading fundraisers, having hosted a number of Irish American parties throughout the U.S. in the past year which have topped up the Clinton campaign coffers by $1 million." Half of that million came from two parties in New York and San Francisco organized by Kelly in April of 2007.

Declan Kelly reportedly raised at least $1,500,000 for Senator Hillary Clinton in five fundraisers from 2007 to 2008. All the events were held on behalf of a group called "Irish-Americans for Hillary", and one of the other two co-founders of Teneo Holdings, future Chief Operating Officer Paul Keary, was also a member, the Irish Independent noted on November 16, 2007. Keary is "Kelly's long time colleague and friend from FTI Consulting and Financial Dynamics", and "Kelly, who served as an advisor to Hillary Clinton when she ran for President, led the buy-out of Financial Dynamics in 2003 and in 2006 sold it to FTI Consulting for $340m, still the largest price ever paid for a communications consulting company." While Teneo wasn't officially launched until 2011, the firm and website were registered in 2009, two months after the envoy appointment, as I reported.

Teneo's third founder Douglas Band used to be President Bill Clinton's "body man", and James O'Shea reported for Irish Central in 2011, Kelly and Band were "known to be close friends who have known each other for almost two decades." When Band first "joined the Clinton White House in the fall of 1995", he worked "as an unpaid intern" for deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills, who later became Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Band "created and built the Clinton Global Initiative that to date has raised over 63 billion dollars for nearly 2,000 philanthropic initiatives around the world which in total has impacted over 300 million people in 180 countries." The uncredited Irish Independent article also claimed, "All of the ["Irish-Americans for Hillary"] organisers have been supporters of the Clintons from before Bill's presidential victory in 1992."

After resigning as envoy in 2011, Kelly co-founded Teneo - "a global advisory firm that partners exclusively with the CEOs and senior leaders of many of the world’s largest and most complex companies and organizations. The firm is focused on working with clients to address a wide range of financial, reputational and transformational challenges and opportunities by combining the disciplines of strategic communications, investor relations, investment banking, financial analytics, executive recruiting, digital analytics, corporate governance, government affairs, business intelligence, management consulting and corporate restructuring on an integrated basis. Teneo’s clients include the CEOs of many Fortune 100 companies across a diverse range of industry sectors."

"Aside from his business interests, Mr Kelly serves on the boards of several philanthropic and community-based organisations which focus on Irish issues, including the American Ireland Fund," the BBC reported in September 2009. Thurles also noted, at the time, that he "serves in an advisory capacity to the Board of Directors of the American Ireland Fund." And Kelly was listed as "Chairman, Board of Directors, American Ireland Fund" on the St. Patrick's Day Obama White House guest list Lynn Sweet published on March 17, 2009. This archived link reveals Teneo CEO Declan Kelly was still on the American Ireland Fund Board of Directors during State Secretary Clinton's visit.

At the bottom of the Worldwide Ireland Funds press release for the luncheon held in Clinton's honor, Brendan Murphy from Teneo Strategy is listed as a reference, and his firm email address and phone number are provided for contact info. According to the biography at his firm's website, Murphy is now the Senior Vice President for Teneo Strategy, and he "specializes in counseling management teams on corporate strategy, communications, government affairs and crisis management." Murphy also handles public relations for Liberty Insurance. While this would indicate that Teneo did public relations for the event, it may also mean that they sponsored it.

(Editor's Note: A week after this article was published, the Irish Independent reported that Teneo's "Irish clients include Liberty Insurance and the Ireland Funds.")

Another press release viewable on The Ireland Funds website issued on December 7, 2012 lists Brendan Murphy and Teneo Strategy as a reference. It claimed that "500 guests from all sides of the community in Northern Ireland as well as business, civic, community and cultural leaders" attended the event and that Clinton was awarded with "a specially commissioned Belleek China piece."

"The award presented to Secretary of State Clinton was a unique piece of Belleek China from Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. The one-off piece symbolically showed a basket of flowers from Northern Ireland as well as flowers from the Secretary’s home state of Illinois and other symbols of Northern Ireland."

"This was the Secretary of State’s 7th visit to Northern Ireland and was part of her last foreign mission in that role," the press release presumably written by Teneo Strategy announced.

A transcript at the U.S. State Department website quotes Clinton at the luncheon saying, "And I, too, will acknowledge and thank our former Economic Envoy Declan Kelly who has done so much to help bring more investors to the region, and I thank you for your contributions, Declan."

One of the photographs from the luncheon at The Ireland Funds website shows longtime aide Huma Abedin sitting at a table behind Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

An article by Irish American Magazine co-founder Niall O'Dowd - who was on Clinton's 2008 financial committee - notes that Huma Abedin accompanied Hillary on her last trip to Ireland as Secretary of State.

"Everyone agrees [Hillary Clinton] looks tired, puffy around the eyes, in need of a break. She admits so herself. She has traveled over a million miles and to 112 countries. She has lived on a plane. Her aide Huma Abedin says it is all like a blur these days."

An essay published at Irish Central on December 9, 2012 called "Hillary's Choice -- a run for glory or a quiet retirement after Secretary of State? Irish trip provided vital clues as to her intentions for 2016" by Niall O'Dowd about a dinner - I reported on last month - that was hosted by billionaire Denis O'Brien (who has donated millions of dollars to Clinton Foundation projects) for Clinton and Irish-American fundraisers states, "Hillary wasn’t saying on Thursday night what her plans were but her tireless aide Huma Abedin did pipe up and say 'vacation' when the question was raised on about what she would do next."

Although it wasn't revealed until 2013, Huma Abedin stepped down as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff in June of 2012 and did consulting work for Teneo while still working for the State Department as a Special Government Employee. A lawsuit recently announced by the Associated Press (link), seeks emails from Clinton and Abedin that weren't released by the State Department in previous Freedom of Information Action requests, apparently because they were using the private www.clintonemail.com server instead of government-provided email accounts.

The lawsuit explains, "AP seeks these records to shed light on the official actions of Secretary Clinton and Ms. Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary Clinton and high-ranking government official in her own right. The records sought by Request B are necessary for the public’s understanding of the intertwined relationships among Secretary Clinton, Ms. Abedin and Teneo, a consulting firm founded by Douglas Band, a longtime aide and advisor to former President Bill Clinton. Ms. Abedin reportedly worked for Teneo at the same time she worked as a Special Government Employee for the State Department. [AP journalist Stephen] Braun explained in his request: 'These records pertain to a key aide to Secretary Clinton whose SGE role at State has come under question in recent weeks and is the subject of Congressional inquiry. The records pertaining to the hiring of a long-time aide of a former secretary of state who has run in the past for the presidency of the United States and is considering another presidential campaign is a matter of current exigency to the American public."

In his June 13, 2013 request to the State Department (pdf link), Senator Chuck Grassley sought "all documents and/or communications between the Department of State and Teneo, and any client or entities they represent," which would have to include Bill Clinton, since along with being a paid adviser and an unpaid adviser for the firm, he was also a Teneo client.

A month-and-a-half later, the Washington Post reported, "The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday that the State Department and Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner, have put up 'a stone wall' in the face of his inquiry about her final months at the agency, and vowed to continue raising questions about Abedin's employment status."

"'So far, the State Department and Ms. Abedin haven’t provided a single document that I requested,' Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. 'Putting up a stone wall raises a lot more questions about how the program is being used than it answers. I intend to pursue more complete answers to my questions.'"

"Abedin said her work at Teneo involved 'providing strategic advice and consulting services to the firm's management team' and helping to organize an annual event," the Post reported about her response (pdf link). "Abedin said her work there did not involve the State Department."

Abedin wrote, "I was not asked, nor did I undertake, any work on Teneo's behalf before the State Department (and I should note that it is my understanding that Teneo does not conduct business with the Department of State). I also was not asked, nor did I provide, insights about the Department, my work with the Secretary, or any government information to which I may have had access. And, I certainly 'never gathered information from government sources for the purpose of informing investment decisions of Teneo's clients' as the Senate letter suggests."

In May of 2013, Politico reported, "Her work for Teneo, which was founded by Band and a former aide to Tony Blair, was advisory, and among the projects was planning a major specific event where the former British prime minister and Bill Clinton both spoke, the friend said." That "major specific event" may have been - as the Economic reported in August of 2012 - in São Paulo on August 28th, when Blair, Clinton and former Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso spoke at an event run by Itaú BBA, a Brazilian investment bank. "Ilan Goldfajn, the bank's chief economist, moderated a discussion that touched on foreign views of Brazil and Brazilian views of abroad—and what the developed world could learn about handling financial crises from a country that has suffered more than its fair share of them in the past, but is coming through the most recent one much better than most."

"Her services included advising and participating in planning for the Secretary's schedule and travel", Thomas B. Gibbons, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs wrote Senator Grassley on July 17, 2013 (pdf link), in regards to "Huma Abedin's tenure at the Department of State", while working as a "senior adviser/expert, for which she was compensated at the hourly rate of a GS-15/10 and was designated as a Special Government Employee (SGE)." Before stepping down as one of Clinton's two Deputy Chiefs of Staff on June 3, 2012, Abedin "advised the Secretary and supervised the operations of her schedule and travel," but it's unclear if someone else took over the "supervision" role.

It's uncertain whether Abedin assisted Teneo or specifically helped coordinate - with Brendan Murphy or other associates at the firm - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's appearance at the luncheon, but their emails on the matter might help shed some light on any involvement, which might be at odds with what Huma wrote in response to Grassley's inquiries. Abedin claimed she "was not asked, nor did I undertake, any work on Teneo's behalf before the Department."

Huma Abedin worked for the State Department, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton - personally - in December of 2012, so she essentially spent time on that December of 2012 Irish trip with all four of her bosses.

A few weeks after Abedin was hired by Teneo in June of 2012, Irish Central reported that Kelly helped "deliver the former American president Bill Clinton to the Worldwide Ireland Fund dinner in Cork where he will oversee the Clinton schedule for the weekend." It also noted that the Cork dinner would "be the fourth time in a little over a year that the president will come to Ireland at the behest of Kelly."

While serving as U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly helped set up the US-NI Mentorship Program with the Worldwide Ireland Fund, and a 2010 participant who "also developed and successfully launched" its website "was fortunate enough to be invited" to the December 7, 2012 luncheon honoring Hillary Clinton. According to the menu, the food was seasoned with Guinness, Bushmills and Kilbeggan whiskey, and Titanic cabin biscuits were included with the meal.

State Department official invited Teneo CEO and other fundraisers to Ireland

Perhaps escaping US media attention in late 2012, Clinton supporter Niall O'Dowd's website revealed that a State Department official invited Teneo CEO Declan Kelly and other Irish-American fundraisers to accompany Hillary Clinton on what would end up being her last foreign trip as Secretary of State.

"Invitations have gone out from her top political aide Kris Balderston to key members of her fundraising and support group in the Irish American community to accompany her to Ireland," Irish Central reported a few days before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's plane touched down at Dublin Airport on December 5, 2012. "It is the first time since Clinton became Secretary of State that there has been an effort to reunite her old coterie of Irish advisors."

Irish Central's Kate Hickey adds, "Among those invited are head of Irish American Democrats Stella O’Leary, former U.S Economic Envoy Declan Kelly, businessman John FitzPatrick, top lawyer Brian O’Dwyer, former Congressman Bruce Morrison, Irish Voice Founder Niall O’Dowd, and other key members of her Irish circle. Collectively the group raised millions for Hillary during her runs for U.S. Senate and president and several were on her main finance committee."

"They will accompany her to her human rights speech at Dublin City University and her visit to Belfast on Friday where she will address an American Ireland Fund lunch," Hickey also noted.

Kris Balderston was on Democratic New York Senator Hillary Clinton's staff for eight years, before serving as Special Representative for Global Partnerships at the US Department of State for nearly four years from April of 2009 to February 2013, according to his LinkedIn resume. While Clinton was in the Senate, Balderston served as her Legislative Director before being promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff. He quit the State Department - during the same month Clinton and Abedin left - to work in the private sector at a public relations firm. AdWeek's Patrick Coffee referred to Balderston's career move as "another sign of the very close proximity of PR to politics."

"Fleishman-Hillard today announced the appointment of Kris Balderston as senior partner and general manager of the firm's Washington, D.C., office," a press release noted on February 7, 2013. "He comes directly from his position as Special Representative for Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State."

"At State, Balderston conceptualized and led the Global Partnership Initiative within the Office of the Secretary of State. In this capacity, he brokered alliances with more than 300 private sector businesses, nonprofit organizations and others. These partnerships employed practical, market-based solutions to advance U.S. diplomacy, further international development goals and address significant global humanitarian challenges. His 30-plus years of experience in Washington includes tenure in the Clinton White House, where he was Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet and Deputy Assistant to the President."

"In addition, Balderston was Senior Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell at the U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee, Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Labor, Senior Policy Associate and Project Manager at the National Governors Association, and Senior Policy Associate at the Council of State Community Affairs Agencies," the press release added. Former Maine Democratic Senator George Mitchell is now a Senior Advisor to Teneo. "In 1995, he served as a Special Advisor to President William J. Clinton on Ireland, and from 1996 to 2000 he served as the Independent Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks," Mitchell's Teneo bio notes. "In 2000 and 2001, at the request of President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Chairman Yasser Arafat, Senator Mitchell served as Chairman of an International Fact-Finding Committee on violence in the Middle East."

In the Fleishman-Hillard press release, Balderston hails Hillary Clinton: "The firm has a deep understanding of that dynamic and is enthusiastically embracing new ideas and innovative solutions. That spirit is similar to what Secretary Clinton brought to the State Department, and I'm excited to lead the Washington office in that kind of exciting and creative environment."

"Emails and other communications exchanged among three of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's inner circle of advisers and officials at her family's foundation and a controversial consulting firm are at the center of the latest transparency lawsuit to hit the Department of State," Sarah Westwood reported for the Washington Examiner on March 28, 2015. "Citizens United, a right-leaning activist nonprofit, sued the department March 16 after it ignored a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for written and electronic communications of Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and Kris Balderston, all longtime Clinton confidantes and close aides at the State Department."

Westwood added, "The group pressed for personal emails and letters between Abedin and a number of officials with ties to Teneo, including Band, company co-founder Declan Kelly and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell."

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes report about a "massive Clinton fundraising operation" and refer to Balderston as "Hillary’s special ops guy at State" in a new book called "HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton", which was excerpted at Salon on March 21, 2015.

"Hillary tapped Kris Balderston, the hit list author, to keep the Clinton political network humming at State. A longtime lieutenant to both Clintons, Balderston, who called everyone “buddy,” liked to talk in salesman’s terms about Hillary’s 'power to convene' and her commitment to making sure her partners could 'do well by doing good.' What he meant was that Hillary could use the Clinton Rolodex to focus private-sector money, government power, and the expertise at colleges and nonprofits to solve global problems. At best, they would do a public service and make a buck. At worst, they would make a powerful friend. Balderston became, for lack of a better term, Hillary’s special ops guy at State.

He wrote Hillary the first memo on his concept for an office that would mirror Bill’s Clinton Global Initiative on December 8, 2008, less than a week after she was named to her job and more than six weeks before she took office. Though she had to wait for some of her lieutenants to clear the Obama vetting process and a Senate confirmation vote, she had made it a priority to empower Balderston, the political fixer who could help her build unique networks connecting her State Department to other government agencies, the nonprofit sector, and the corporate world. While many Democrats believe that government is the answer to the world’s problems, and many Republicans believe the same of the private sector, Balderston’s office was the embodiment of Hillary’s core Clintonian belief that government, business, and charitable organizations are all vital components of a thriving society."

See also "Staff employed by State Dept. as administrative support for Clinton envoy helped launch Teneo" and "Questions linger about Clintons-linked firm co-founded by former US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland "

Staff employed by State Dept. as administrative support for Clinton envoy helped launch Teneo

April 7 Update: Fifth staff member who followed Declan Kelly from State Dept. to Teneo was Senior Counsel to Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland

US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland had "post-employment consulting arrangement" that included "leased company car" and health benefits for family from firm he left for 2-year ambassadorship

(Editor's note: Much of this is excerpted from much longer article "Questions linger about Clintons-linked firm co-founded by former US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland.")

Declan Kelly - a long time friend of the Clintons - was appointed the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September of 2009. Although "speculated to be in line for the CEO's job", Kelly officially resigned from his job as "EVP and chief integration officer for FTI Consulting and chairman of FD US and FD Ireland" a few months earlier, but agreed to "serve as a senior adviser on several major client initiatives, first as an employee through October 5, then pursuant to a consulting agreement through June 15, 2011. According to the press release, he has resigned to pursue non-commercial opportunities outside of the firm," PR Week noted in July of 2009.

Less than a week after Kelly stopped officially working as an employee for FTI - but apparently remained a consultant - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued joint press statements with First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Stormont Castle in Northern Ireland, where she announced, "I have brought with me our new economic envoy, Declan Kelly, who is already hard at work, fostering economic ties."

After he resigned as envoy, Ryan Grim reported for Huffington Post on November 14, 2011, "As part of his deal with FTI, Kelly told HuffPost, he had agreed to a noncompete clause that prevented him from establishing a rival firm within two years of leaving FTI. Hillary Clinton had just been named to President Barack Obama's Cabinet and had something to keep him busy."

Kelly told Huffington Post, "When she wasn't successful [in her presidential campaign] and she became secretary of state, she asked me if I wanted to do a stint as an envoy to Ireland, and it came at the right time in my life. So I gave up everything, resigned from the job and agreed to a two-year noncompete, and went to Northern Ireland and did that job for two years. And I resigned in March of this year, and in June we started the new business."

The noncompete clause states, "You hereby reaffirm your obligation to comply strictly with the post-employment restrictions in the Employment Agreement during the twelve month period commencing October 6, 2009, and you hereby reaffirm your obligation under the Amended RSA, during the period up to and including June 15, 2011, not to (a) become employed by or a partner in or a consultant to any financial communications business competing with FD and/or any of its affiliates (the “Group”) in any one or more countries in Western Europe, or in the United States or Canada or South Africa or Dubai or Hong Kong or China or India or Bahrain or Russia (a “Competing Business”) and in a manner in which your employment, partnership or consultancy would compete with the Group, (b) solicit clients or employees of the Group away from the Group for the benefit of a Competing Business or (c) willfully or deliberately disclose to any person information which is confidential to the Group, subject only to the following express exceptions: (a) your performance of services as an independent contractor to FTI during the period October 6, 2009 through and including June 15, 2011, or earlier in the event you terminate the independent contractor relationship prior thereto; and (b) your employment (whether directly or through an entity owned by you) of Sue Bloomberg."

In the Huffington Post article, Kelly didn't mention that - per his termination agreement - he had a "post-employment consulting arrangement with FD US and FTI."

"You will be reimbursed, in accordance with standard FTI expense reimbursement practice, for all business related expenses incurred by you during the period through October 5, 2009, and for all business related expenses incurred in connection with the Key Accounts (or approved in advance by the CEO of FTI) during the period through June 15, 2011," the agreement noted. "During the period from October 6, 2009 through June 15, 2011, you (or an entity to be formed and owned by you) will serve as an independent contractor consultant to FTI and FD."

"In the event you determine to accept a position in government service that prohibits or materially impairs your performance of services as an independent contractor consultant to FTI or FD through June 15, 2011, you will provide not less than thirty (30) days’ written notice of such decision to the CEO of FTI, and during such notice period you will consult and work with the CEO of FTI and other members of FTI and FD senior management, as well as the pertinent client facing FD professionals, to develop and implement a plan reasonably calculated to facilitate the continued and uninterrupted provision of client services to the Key Accounts.

You and your family shall be entitled to continued medical and dental insurance coverage at present levels through June 15, 2011. Thereafter, you will be eligible to continue your health insurance coverage under COBRA, as in effect at such time. You will receive further details on these conversion/continuation rights in a separate document from FlexAmerica.

You will continue to have the use of a leased company car in accordance with Section 5(d) of your Employment Agreement through June 15, 2011. In the event applicable FTI insurance arrangements do not permit the continued use of a leased company car after October 5, 2009, suitable and mutually acceptable alternative arrangements will be made."

"During the period October 6, 2009 through June 15, 2011, you will be entitled to receive the Key Account Personal Billings, the *** Origination Fee, and the *** Origination Fee, with payment of such fees, in each instance, to be made 10 working days after such fees are collected," the agreement adds.

Financial statements suggest that Kelly earned as much as $2.4 million from FTI in 2009, but it's unclear what he received from them the next two years.

The Huffington Post article continued, "As the Northern Ireland envoy, Kelly took no salary from State, he said, but was afforded one staffer in Washington and reimbursed for coach flights across the pond. On his own dime, he said, he hired a staff of five and paid for office space at a cost of $1.4 million, while also giving up potentially millions in salary over the two-year period. Kelly's assertions may sound extreme, but ambassadors and high-level envoys are known to spend heavily with their personal money while in the job. The White House referred questions to the State Department; a spokesman there didn't respond to requests for comment."

"Kelly has brought that staff with him to his new investment firm," Grim noted.

He bragged to Huffington Post in 2011, "I didn't need the State Department or the U.S. government's help to access the economic elite in Ireland. I have advised four prime ministers in Ireland, all pro bono. I had a business in Ireland for over a decade, I have a home there, I am an Irish citizen and I know virtually every senior business leader in the country. I've gained no personal benefit from this at all."

But according to the Irish Echo, the State Department helped "provide administrative support" to Kelly, so it's unclear how much was spent by the US government.

"The formation of Kelly’s newest venture was in the works for some time before Kelly resigned," the Irish Echo reported on August 4, 2011. "A trademark application was made for the Teneo company logo in April, 2010, and an application for funding was also submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation months before its approval in early June, giving the new company a huge grant for over three million dollars in start up cash."

The Irish Echo claimed that a "U.S. State Department official" told it that "the State Department did provide administrative support and reimbursement for travel expenses." It also reported, "Several staff employed by the State Department as administrative support for the envoy position while Mr. Kelly was envoy are now working at Teneo."

According to his LinkedIn resume, Stephen W. Meahl was an advisor to the Office of the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland from January 2010 to May 2011, then became a Senior Associate at Teneo Holdings in June 2011, Vice President in 2012, and Senior Vice President in December of 2014.

"Mr. Meahl is a Senior Vice President with Teneo Strategy," his Teneo bio states. "He also serves as Chief of Staff to Teneo’s Chairman and CEO where he is responsible for managing a wide range of special initiatives across the firm’s operating divisions."

The bio adds, "Prior to joining Teneo, Mr. Meahl worked for the US Department of State’s Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland where he was responsible for executing a number special initiatives to help drive economic development in support of the ongoing peace process. He began his career with Fidelity Investments." In 2009, an earlier version of Meahl's Teneo bio, added, "In his role, Mr. Meahl was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the office including all media and communications. He was also responsible for relationship management with key State Department and foreign officials, and coordinated the development of major initiatives within the office."

Therese O'Higgins, according to her LinkedIn resume, is now a Vice President at Teneo, and also "worked at the Office of the US State Department's Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland where she worked closely with the Ireland Funds and Northern Ireland Science Park to set up the US–NI Mentorship Program. The US-NI Mentorship Program is a planned one-year work placement for recent graduates from Northern Ireland to work with leading corporations in the US. Therese continues to run this program in collaboration with the aforementioned parties."

The US-NI Mentorship Program was founded by Declan Kelly when he worked as Clinton's envoy. In a message on its website, Kelly writes, "From September 2009 until May 2011, I had the privilege of serving as the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland. In that role, my office worked to increase economic opportunities between the US and Northern Ireland, and to develop programs that would have a long‐term impact on the region. One of the first things I discovered about Northern Ireland was the strength of the region’s incredible young people. Northern Ireland’s universities produce some of the highest quality graduates anywhere in the world, and these graduates play a key role in attracting foreign direct investment to the region.When I stepped down as Envoy, I was anxious to continue to support the US-NI Mentorship Program. Feedback on the program from both participants and host companies continues to be exceptionally positive and I am pleased to report that many of the world’s leading corporations have signed up for the program again for this year."

"The program selects approximately twenty graduates, from across Northern Ireland, and places them in US corporations for a one‐year work period. The graduates are individuals who have demonstrated academic promise and have shown an interest in developing entrepreneurship and management skills.The goal of the program is for the participants to be able to return to Northern Ireland with the skills and experience to start businesses and become business leaders in their communities. Having had the opportunity to meet with many of the participants of the program, I can tell you that they will be well prepared to return and invest in the future of Northern Ireland."

"Therese O'Higgins of @Teneo hands out awards at 3rd US-Northern Ireland Mentorship Program graduation event," @IRLFunds tweeted on November 6, 2013, including a picture from the event.

At the program's website (which mentions that she is a Teneo Vice President, US-Northern Ireland Mentorship Executive Director Therese O'Higgins writes, "Having been involved in this program from the outset, it is truly rewarding to see the program continue to enjoy success and attract the highest standards of graduates ."

"On March 12, 2015 US-NI Mentorship Program participants attended a lunch in New York City with Founder, Declan Kelly," the US-NI website announced. "The lunch was held at Teneo Holdings headquaters, New York celebrating the fifth year of the US-NI Mentorship Program."

So far, I've been unable to find a biography for O'Higgins on Teneo's website, so I'm unsure she still works there. Along with former Senior Associate Monica Milton, whose expunged Teneo bio, reveals she "joined Teneo after working with Declan Kelly during his appointment as the U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland for the U.S. Department of State. In that role, she was responsible for coordination with the U.S. Government including organizing official events, and conferences working with senior State Department officials and representatives from foreign governments. Prior to this, Ms. Milton was the Community Liaison Officer at the U.S. Embassy Muscat, Oman working as the Ambassador's representative managing internal and external programs as a key member of the in-country country team. Ms. Milton also represented the U.S. in a diplomatic role during two assignments at the U.S. Embassy, Cairo, Egypt assigned to the Defense Attach'e Office and the Public Affairs Office. Ms. Milton has also lived in Saudi Arabia."

According to his Teneo biography, Steven Sullivan, the current Chief Administration Officer and Chief Financial Officer also worked with Declan Kelly in the envoy's office.

"Prior to joining Teneo, Mr. Sullivan served as Deputy to the U.S. State Department’s Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, helping to drive investment to the region from U.S. corporations and facilitate bi-lateral trade. In this position, Mr. Sullivan was responsible for relationship management and communications. Prior to his role with the U.S. Envoy, Mr. Sullivan worked in GE Capital’s Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions Group focusing on restructuring strategies for GE Capital’s non-core assets, primarily consisting of commercial real estate, commercial equipment leasing and consumer finance platforms. Mr. Sullivan has also held positions within GE Capital’s Commercial Real Estate Division with responsibilities ranging from financial planning & analysis, loan restructuring, and transaction structuring."

Jacqueline Wilson - who is currently the Senior Managing Director at Teneo Strategy - is the fifth member of Kelly's staff who followed him from the State Department. According to her Teneo bio, "Prior to joining Teneo, Dr. Wilson was Senior Counsel to the U.S. State Department’s Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly."

"For over 20 years Jacqueline Wilson has been providing communications, reputation management, and government relations counsel to corporate, nonprofit, and government clients, with an emphasis on international engagements," the bio adds. "Her nonprofit clients have included academic institutions, associations, and international philanthropic and relief organizations. Government clients have included leaders of cities, states, and countries across the Americas and Europe."

Questions linger about Clintons-linked firm co-founded by former US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland

Updates: Teneo received $3.4M Rockefeller Foundation grant before it officially launched in 2011; Most media outlets ignore CEO of firm Huma Abedin worked for while at State Dept. was appointed economic envoy to N. Ireland by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009; $3.4M grant plus firm, trademark and website registrations suggest Clinton ally co-founded Teneo while at State Dept.; Reports: Staff employed by State Dept. as administrative support for Clinton envoy were hired by Teneo; 2 current Teneo VPs worked with envoy Declan Kelly; New mystery: Who does Clinton emails domain registrant work for now?

(March 18, 2015 editor's note: Headline to this article was changed from "Associated Press lawsuit against State Dept over Clinton emails includes Anthony Weiner mentions", since it's more about Declan Kelly and Teneo.)

"The Associated Press said Wednesday it has sued the State Department to force the release of government documents and e-mails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of State, an action taken a day after she defended her use of a private e-mail account to conduct business and after six formal attempts by the news agency to obtain records," Roger Wu reported for USA Today yesterday.

Wu added, "Beginning in 2010, AP filed six requests under FOIA to obtain records from the State Department regarding Clinton's tenure as secretary, including her calendars and schedules and records concerning the designation of Special Government Employee status given to her former deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin."

At the Associated Press, Steve Peoples notes, "The legal action follows repeated requests filed under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act that have gone unfulfilled. They include one request the AP made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013."

According to the lawsuit (pdf link), "On August 20, 2013, AP journalist Stephen Braun [sought] copies of all emails, in-house memos, correspondence, internal notes and any other pertinent documents and records from the office of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton between November 1, 2011 and February 1, 2013, relating to the designation of Special Government Employee given to former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State Huma Abedin and to her work performed for the State Department as an Special Government Employee."

"The request further seeks copies of the same types of records for the same time frame 'from the files of the following current and former State Department personnel: Former Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Secretary Cheryl Mills; former Senior Adviser Philippe Reines; Deputy Secretary of State William Burns; Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy; former Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan; and Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne S. Verveer,'" the AP complaint continues.

For some unknown reason, the AP also wants emails that mention Abedin's husband, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, in the subject or body, too: "In addition, the request seeks 'copies of all emails from Secretary Clinton and the above-named parties during the same period described above in which the following underlined words or phrases are in the subject and/or body of the email message: Huma Abedin, Huma, Anthony Weiner, Teneo, Douglas Band, Doug Band, Declan Kelly, Paul Keary, Clinton Foundation[.]'"

In between leaving Congress in 2011 after he admitted lying about sexting with multiple women and his losing campaign to become NYC mayor in 2013, Weiner did some consulting work for firms connected to the Clintons, as well. The AP doesn't seem interested in anyone else's spouses.

The lawsuit explains, "AP seeks these records to shed light on the official actions of Secretary Clinton and Ms. Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary Clinton and high-ranking government official in her own right. The records sought by Request B are necessary for the public’s understanding of the intertwined relationships among Secretary Clinton, Ms. Abedin and Teneo, a consulting firm founded by Douglas Band, a longtime aide and advisor to former President Bill Clinton. Ms. Abedin reportedly worked for Teneo at the same time she worked as a Special Government Employee for the State Department. Mr. Braun explained in his request: 'These records pertain to a key aide to Secretary Clinton whose SGE role at State has come under question in recent weeks and is the subject of Congressional inquiry. The records pertaining to the hiring of a long-time aide of a former secretary of state who has run in the past for the presidency of the United States and is considering another presidential campaign is a matter of current exigency to the American public."

While many media outlets mention Band ("a onetime personal assistant to Mr. Clinton who had started a lucrative corporate consulting firm — which Mr. Clinton joined as a paid adviser — while overseeing the Clinton Global Initiative, the foundation’s glitzy annual gathering of chief executives, heads of state, and celebrities", the NY Times reported in August 2013), most seem to ignore that Teneo co-founder, CEO and Chairman Declan Kelly was appointed by Hillary Clinton as an envoy to Northern Ireland while she was Secretary of State.

"In his role as Economic Envoy, Mr. Kelly is recognized as having helped bring significant investment to the region from U.S. corporations," the Teneo biography continues. "He also played a significant role in supporting the efforts that led to the historic devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly, giving Northern Ireland fully devolved political governance for the first time in its modern history."

As his Teneo bio states, "Prior to Teneo, Mr. Kelly served as the U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland at the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Kelly was appointed Economic Envoy by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September, 2009."

In his June 13, 2013 request to the State Department (pdf link), Senator Chuck Grassley sought "all documents and/or communications between the Department of State and Teneo, and any client or entities they represent," which would have to include Bill Clinton, since along with being a paid adviser and an unpaid adviser for the firm, he was also a Teneo client.

A month-and-a-half later, the Washington Post reported, "The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday that the State Department and Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner, have put up 'a stone wall' in the face of his inquiry about her final months at the agency, and vowed to continue raising questions about Abedin's employment status."

"'So far, the State Department and Ms. Abedin haven’t provided a single document that I requested,' Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. 'Putting up a stone wall raises a lot more questions about how the program is being used than it answers. I intend to pursue more complete answers to my questions.'"

"Abedin said her work at Teneo involved 'providing strategic advice and consulting services to the firm's management team' and helping to organize an annual event," the Post reported about her response (pdf link). "Abedin said her work there did not involve the State Department."

Abedin wrote, "I was not asked, nor did I undertake, any work on Teneo's behalf before the State Department (and I should note that it is my understanding that Teneo does not conduct business with the Department of State). I also was not asked, nor did I provide, insights about the Department, my work with the Secretary, or any government information to which I may have had access. And, I certainly 'never gathered information from government sources for the purpose of informing investment decisions of Teneo's clients' as the Senate letter suggests."

In May of 2013, Politico reported, "Her work for Teneo, which was founded by Band and a former aide to Tony Blair, was advisory, and among the projects was planning a major specific event where the former British prime minister and Bill Clinton both spoke, the friend said." That "major specific event" may have been - as the Economic reported in August of 2012 - in São Paulo on August 28th, when Blair, Clinton and former Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso spoke at an event run by Itaú BBA, a Brazilian investment bank. "Ilan Goldfajn, the bank's chief economist, moderated a discussion that touched on foreign views of Brazil and Brazilian views of abroad—and what the developed world could learn about handling financial crises from a country that has suffered more than its fair share of them in the past, but is coming through the most recent one much better than most."

However, an article by Alec MacGillis published by the New Republic in 2013, revealed another event at which both Clinton and Blair spoke that was arranged by Charles Band, that "[s]omehow" was never "noticed by the press."

"One Thursday evening last September, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair met in New York to conduct what was supposed to be a high-minded discourse on terrorism, geopolitics, and the global economy. The setting was elegant—the beaux arts ballroom of the Essex House, an iconic tower on Central Park South. The 78-person VIP guest list included Harvey Weinstein, Eli Broad, Blackstone co-founders Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson, Silicon Valley impresario Sean Parker, Billie Jean King, George Pataki, and New York City police chief Ray Kelly, along with CEOs and top executives from companies like Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola, BP, and Bank of America. Somehow, these onetime world leaders, corporate titans, and other notable personages converged in the center of New York without the event ever being noticed by the press.

The guests had been wrangled, persuaded, flattered, and otherwise enticed to attend by Doug Band, a tall man with genial, unmemorable features and a deferential demeanor. In fact, the gathering was taking place in his own building, underneath his expansive eighth-floor apartment, and it represented a major triumph for him."

This wasn't the first time Bush was reportedly "persuaded" by a Teneo co-founder. On March 8, 2010 The Guardian reported, "The former US president George Bush has made a direct plea to David Cameron to support the Northern Ireland peace process, amid widespread concern in the US about the Tories' new electoral pact with the Ulster Unionists."

"The Guardian understands that the White House is so concerned that the US economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly, persuaded Bush to intervene," the paper reported in 2010.

However, on March 9, 2010, Philip J. Crowley Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs denied the report.

QUESTION: A question about Northern Ireland, actually. Can you confirm this Guardian report that Declan Kelly urged former President Bush to make a call to David Cameron last week about the vote?

MR. CROWLEY: He did not. We were not involved in – with the – former President Bush’s phone call.

QUESTION: Were there any contacts by the Administration on this other than the calls by the former president? I mean, was there anything by this Administration to push it one way or the other?

MR. CROWLEY: Clarify, Kirit. Try --

QUESTION: Was there anything from this government that’s actually tried to contact one side or the other to push them on this vote? Not – I know that you said it didn’t involve the former president at all, but --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, yeah. I mean, the Secretary has been engaged with all of the parties. She talked recently to the leading figures in Ireland, including Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness, also Reg Empey. So we have been actively engaged, but we did not have anything to do with President Bush’s phone call.

At the Teneo event in 2012, before introducing Clinton, Blair and Bush, Band "launched into a long-winded sales pitch. Teneo was the next big thing in executive consulting, he informed the audience. He played a promotional video about the firm. He introduced the heads of Teneo’s divisions, describing their résumés and asking each to stand in turn."

According to MacGillis, "Band had a key ally on Hillary’s team: Huma Abedin. Bill’s body man and Hillary’s body woman had bonded over their loyalty to their bosses. They were known to show up at parties together, which some saw as an endearing big brother–little sister dynamic, and which others interpreted as evidence that Abedin had a crush on Band. They also had an ingenious method of collecting intelligence on each other’s behalf. Abedin would sidle up to someone in Bill’s camp and, in a confiding tone, make a disparaging remark about Band. If it was reciprocated, she would relay the criticisms to Band and he would do the same for her, says someone who fell for this technique. 'They had each other’s back a lot,' says the former White House colleague."

Along with Clinton, Blair is also an advisor to Teneo, which was reported in May of 2011, just after Kelly quit his envoy post, but the official announcement didn't come until June 30, 2011, a day after James O'Shea reported, "Declan Kelly, who recently stepped down as the United States Government's Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, is re-entering the private sector with a new business in partnership with Douglas Band, the long time top advisor to President Bill Clinton, Irish Central has learned," and that "Teneo, a name derived from the Latin word for "to guide", is expected to commence business in the coming days with its headquarters located in midtown Manhattan."

"President Clinton will serve as an advisor to Teneo and serve on the company's Advisory Board. Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will also serve on the board in a unique and powerful combination of skills and experience that the group believes will leave them uniquely positioned in the international business community. It is believed that this will be the first time that Clinton and Blair will have worked together in a business capacity."

O'Shea reported that Kelly "served as a senior executive at FTI which at the time had 3500 people in 28 locations around the world and a market capitalization of $3 billion. He was speculated to be in line for the CEO's job when he left in September of 2009 to serve as Secretary of State Clinton's economic envoy to Northern Ireland." In July of 2009 - before he was officially tapped by Clinton to be envoy - PR Week noted, "Declan Kelly, EVP and chief integration officer for FTI Consulting and chairman of FD US and FD Ireland, will resign on October 5, 2009. Effective immediately, he will serve as a senior adviser on several major client initiatives, first as an employee through October 5, then pursuant to a consulting agreement through June 15, 2011. According to the press release, he has resigned to pursue non-commercial opportunities outside of the firm."

A 2009 Washington Post article noted, "For a select group of issues, the combined energies of the Clintons can be potent. Just days after Hillary Clinton appointed Declan Kelly the economic envoy to Northern Ireland, for instance, he turned to her husband for help."

"Bill Clinton agreed to include a session on Northern Ireland at his annual philanthropic mega-event, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly in September," the paper added. "Hundreds of business executives packed a ballroom to hear Clinton and Kelly make their investment pitch. The gathering was, Kelly told the crowd, 'a massive assistance to me in my role.' After the session, dozens of executives lined up to talk to Kelly, according to one official in attendance."

On May 11, 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement regarding Kelly's resignation. "Nearly two years ago when I asked Declan to serve, I challenged him to use his considerable talents and entrepreneurial drive to help Northern Ireland grow and sustain the benefits of peace," Clinton wrote. "Within hours of his appointment, Declan was en route to Belfast. He found eager and able partners not only there, but throughout the region. This collective effort has opened up new and exciting opportunities for the people of Northern Ireland to share a more prosperous future."

"During his time as Envoy, Declan has helped our friends in the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, Invest NI, and the business community make Northern Ireland one of the best per capita attractors of investment in the world. In the face of recession and severe fiscal austerity, Northern Ireland’s innovators and entrepreneurs have carved out a global reputation for excellence and industry. Some of the world’s leading companies have established or expanded their presences in Northern Ireland during this time, bringing new jobs, skills, and technologies with them. Declan’s vision of the U.S.-Northern Ireland Mentorship Program – which places young graduates from Northern Ireland in American companies for one year internships – will leave a lasting legacy of expanded opportunity and experience for the region’s budding business leaders and entrepreneurs."

"As I said last October at the U.S. – Northern Ireland Economic Conference, a stronger economy in Northern Ireland will help secure a lasting peace; a bedrock foreign policy priority for the United States," Clinton added. "The United States will continue to work with Northern Ireland to expand the opportunities Declan has fought so hard for, and I know he will remain a passionate advocate for the people of Northern Ireland. It is with appreciation and admiration for a job well-done that I accept the resignation today of U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly. I thank him and wish him and his family the very best in the future."

Reporting for Irish Central on June 22, 2012, Kate Hickey wrote, "Today Kelly will deliver the former American president Bill Clinton to the Worldwide Ireland Fund dinner in Cork where he will oversee the Clinton schedule for the weekend."

"Kelly also raises considerable sums for the Clinton foundation and served as Hillary Clinton’s economic envoy to Northern Ireland for two years and remains close to the former First Lady," Hickey noted.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported, "The revelation that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private e-mail system as secretary of state has revived a Senate investigation into another aspect of her tenure."

The Post notes that Grassley "didn’t know until last week that Clinton was exclusively using a private e-mail account that could contain relevant information about her use of the so-called 'special government employee' program. Huma Abedin, a Clinton confidante and adviser who was granted the special designation, also used the private e-mail system."

"Grassley has in recent days renewed his effort to get answers from the State Department," the paper adds. "That opens a second line of inquiry on Capitol Hill into the Democrats’ presumptive presidential front-runner, who was already facing an inquiry from a House committee seeking her e-mails related to the U.S. response to an attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012."

In May of 2013, I reported, "At a July 18, 2012 daily press briefing, the Acting Deputy Spokesperson and Director of the Press Office Patrick Ventrell was asked a question by a reporter who specifically referred to Abedin as Deputy Chief of Staff, but he didn't correct him," even though he must have known she essentially left that post over a month and a half before on June 3, 2012.

Over half-a-dozen articles about Huma Abedin which unknowingly wrongfully reported she was still Deputy Chief of Staff were published in The New York Times that summer, but apparently no one in the State Department or Weiner and Clinton households informed the paper about the new "working arrangement," even though all have a history of reacting rather quickly to complain about factually incorrect errors.

In July of 2012, another State Department spokesman, Philippe Reines, released a statement to the media defending Abedin and Clinton, but not informing them that the former was no longer Deputy Chief of Staff: "These accusations are nothing but vicious and disgusting lies, and anyone who traffics in them should be ashamed of themselves. I would hope that hearing such a remarkable statement from someone of Senator McCain's stature gives [Bachmann] pause in doing so any further."

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Reines has been described as a "loyalist" and Hillary's right hand "hatchet man," and - like Abedin - he followed Clinton from her Senate job to the State Department, and is still working for her, as she mull running for president.

President Barack Obama defended Abedin as an "American patriot" at the annual Iftar dinner on August 10, 2012. "And that includes a good friend, Huma Abedin, who has worked tirelessly -- (applause) -- worked tirelessly in the White House, in the U.S. Senate, and most exhaustingly, at the State Department, where she has been nothing less than extraordinary in representing our country and the democratic values that we hold dear," Obama said, adding, "Senator Clinton has relied on her expertise, and so have I."

Abedin's response to Senator Grassley claimed it was her "understanding that Teneo does not conduct business with the Department of State," but there clearly seem to be common interests and goals between the two.

"Aspiring to merge corporate consulting, public relations and merchant banking in a single business, Mr. Band poached executives from Wall Street, recruited other Clinton aides to join as employees or advisers and set up shop in a Midtown office formerly belonging to one of the country’s top hedge funds," the NY Times reported August 13, 2013.

That New York Times story claimed Teneo was co-founded by Band in 2009, which seems to be at odds with other reports, and, while it mentions Kelly was appointed envoy by Hillary Clinton, it doesn't name him as a co-founder.

"By 2011, the firm had added a third partner, Declan Kelly, a former State Department envoy for Mrs. Clinton," Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick reported in 2012. "And Mr. Clinton had signed up as a paid adviser to the firm."

"Teneo worked on retainer, charging monthly fees as high as $250,000, according to current and former clients. The firm recruited clients who were also Clinton Foundation donors, while Mr. Band and Mr. Kelly encouraged others to become new foundation donors. Its marketing materials highlighted Mr. Band’s relationship with Mr. Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, where Mr. Band sat on the board of directors through 2011 and remains an adviser. Some Clinton aides and foundation employees began to wonder where the foundation ended and Teneo began."

The 2013 New Republic article on Band by MacGillis claimed, "In 2010, he, Declan Kelly, and a third partner registered the first of several entities in Delaware that would become Teneo. Band and Kelly had met during the 2008 campaign when Kelly was fund-raising for Hillary. Kelly had previously owned a p.r. firm, and the plan was for Band to offer the kind of strategic savvy he’d provided to Clinton. 'He’s particularly useful to the CEOs,' says Podesta."

Abedin's response to Sen. Grassley also ignores that the State Department approved consulting agreements between Teneo and former President Bill Clinton.

"A joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state," Luke Rosiak and Micah Morrison reported for the Washington Examiner on July 30, 2014.

On June 11, 2011, "the State Department approved a consulting agreement [(pdf link)] between Bill Clinton and a controversial Clinton Foundation adviser, Doug Band."

Band's memorandum was sent to Jim Thessin - Deputy Legal Advisor and Designated Agency Ethics Advisor - and Cheryl Mills - Counselor and Chief of State at Department of State - and described Bill Clinton's work for Teneo as "[c]onsulting services regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends affecting the entity" for a three-year term.

The Washington Examiner/Judicial Watch probe claimed "'State Department legal advisers, serving as "designated agency ethics officials,' approved Bill Clinton's speeches in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Panama, Turkey, Taiwan, India, the Cayman Islands and other countries," and that "memos approving Mr. Clinton's speeches were routinely copied to Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's senior counsel and chief of staff."

Also, Rosiak and Morrison reported, "In an accompanying letter to the State Department legal adviser [(pdf link)], Clinton lawyer David Kendall noted that Bill Clinton would disclose proposed consulting deals and, for speeches, provide 'the identities of the host(s) (the entity that pay the speaker's fee)" so that the State Department 'in consultation with the White House as appropriate, may conduct a review for any real or apparent conflicts of interest with the duties of the Secretary of State.'"

Kendall's letter was sent to the State Department on January 5, 2009 stated that he was "writing to describe the voluntary steps, above and beyond the requirements of law and ethics regulations, that President Clinton intends to take to assist Senator Clinton to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with her duties as Secretary of State should she be confirmed."

"I understand you may consult, as appropriate, with the White House Counsel's Office in the event a proposed action raises conflicts concerns, and that you will advise the Secretary, President Clinton's office, and the Foundation as warranted, on applicable steps that may be taken to avoid conflicts of interest," former President Bill Clinton's lawyer added.

According to the 2015 Net Worth for Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton (link), "Teneo Holdings LLC, Varkey GEMS Foundation and Laureate Education, Inc. all listed 'other income' of 'Nonemployee compensation over $1,000'", and she has reportedly given at least one speech to Teneo since resigning as Secretary of State.

When exactly was Teneo founded? If Declan Kelly helped found the firm while he was also envoy, that might complicate Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign even more.

According to Manta, which only refers to Kelly as CEO, "records show [Teneo Strategy Consulting LLC] was established in 2009 and incorporated in New York." Perhaps Teneo was put on hold for two years so that Declan Kelly could accept the envoy appointment by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with less scrutiny.

According to the New York State Corporation & Business Entity Database, Teneo Strategy Consulting LLC was registered on November 18, 2009, which was two months after Declan Kelly was appointed to the No. Ireland envoy post by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It may not be related to the firm that was co-founded in 2009, 2010 or 2011, but it was registered by a former associate with the Wall Street firm, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP.

On September 9. 2011, the database reveals Teneo Strategy LLC was registered in New York.

The website www.TeneoStrategyConsulting.com was registered on November 20, 2009 and began redirecting to www.TeneoHoldings.com on September 30, 2011, according to archive.org. So either the first firm was bought out, or it's always been the same company.

After I tweeted him, Charles Ortel - who has been reporting on Teneo for Breitbart.com ("Investment by BC Partners in Teneo Holdings may create serious problems for the Clinton brand") - suggested, "Actually--go to corporate registry in Delaware, NY, UK , Ireland and you will learn more---next story out Sunday/Monday!"

While searching for info on "Teneo Strategy Consulting", I stumbled upon a link which suggests that the firm got a multimillion dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation nearly thirty days before it was officially launched. According to the foundation's website, Teneo received $3,447,150 as part of the Centennial Fund "[i]n support of a project, in connection with the Rockefeller Foundation's centennial in 2013, to build capacity, create new coalitions, strengthen existing networks, and advance public policy by convening gatherings and providing multimedia tools and resources for identifying challenges and proposing tangible solutions to global problems." The terms of the grant are listed as 6/1/2011 – 3/31/2012.

Back on December 5, 2011, Neil W. McCabe - in a Human Events article - wrote, "Teneo landed its first major client June 1, when the Rockefeller Foundation gave Teneo a $3,447,150, six-month contract to help plan the foundation’s 2013 centennial."

"The foundation is another member of the Clinton’s extended family," McCabe added. "It gave Clinton its Lifetime Innovation Achievement Award July 27 and the foundation is listed as a between $1 to $5 million contributor to the William J. Clinton Foundation, along with several members of the Rockefeller family who are listed as individual contributors."

An IRS form 990-PF (pdf link) shows that Teneo Strategy Consulting was the highest paid independent contractor for the Rockefeller Foundation in 2012, earning $5,731,639.

The 2011 annual report for the Rockefeller Foundation (pdf link) also shows $350,000 was given to the Clinton Global Initiative "toward the costs of its 2011 annual conference, designed to catalyze a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to global challenges such as energy and climate change, poverty alleviation, global health, and education", and $594,960 to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, "for use by its Rwanda Country Office, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Rwanda, to upgrade District Health Strengthening Tool software and provide regional training and support for the local-level integration of new eHealth technologies country-wide."

The Rockefeller Foundation gave "[t]hanks especially to Andy Maas, Max Dworin, and. Michael Coakley," who all worked for Teneo in 2011. "Andy Maas drove the bus, Max Dworin kept us on the road and Michael Coakley made sure we had fuel in the tank," the centennial book "Beyond Freedom" (pdf link) states. "Tom Shea provided commentary. Working with this team has been a pleasure."

Still at the firm, Managing Director Andy Maas - according to his Teneo biography - was "managing director of global corporate communications for FTI Consulting" where he worked with Declan Kelly. Michael Coakley - as his Teneo bio states - "is a Vice President at Teneo Strategy where he advises organizations on business strategy, operational issues and reputational challenges." While, according to his LinkedIn resume, Max Dworin worked as an intern for the office of Bill Clinton from June to August of 2010, then began consulting for Teneo in June of 2011, before being promoted to associate in 2013, and then left Teneo to become New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer's Deputy Press Secretary in December of 2013, and then his Press Secretary in April of 2014. "Max Dworin, A&S '11, a consultant with Teneo Strategy, spearheaded a project in 2013 in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City called the Art of Philanthropy," John Hopkins Magazine states. "The foundation developed a crowdsourced art piece in celebration of the accomplishments of philanthropy in the U.S. and abroad."

"Prior to joining Teneo, Mr. Shea served as Chief of Staff to Jon S. Corzine, both during Mr. Corzine’s tenure as a United States Senator and member of the Foreign Relations Committee and as Governor of New Jersey," Managing Director Tom Shea's Teneo bio states. "Mr. Shea also served in several capacities at the White House, most notably as a Special Assistant to President William J. Clinton."

Shea's original Teneo biography noted, "Before joining Mr. Corzine, Mr. Shea managed the United States Department of State's New York Foreign Press Center (FPC), and served as Director of Communications and Spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. In that capacity, he was responsible for explaining U.S. policy pursued at the world body to both the media and the general public, and coordinated the Mission's media activities related to its participation in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council."

On March 4, 2015, Amy Chozick and Steve Eder reported for the New York Times, "An aide who had been with the Clintons since the 1990s, Justin Cooper, registered the domain name, clintonemail.com, which had a server linked to the Clintons’ home address in Chappaqua, New York."

According to who.is, www.clintonemail.com was registered on January 13, 2009. Justin Cooper was listed as registrant, Administrative Contact and Technical Contact. As the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" noted, "Hillary Clinton [began] her confirmation hearings the same day." She was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate on January 21, 2009.

"Mr. Cooper, whose name is on the clintonemail.com domain registration, now works at Teneo Holdings, a corporate advisory firm with a broad array of global business clients partly run by Douglas J. Band, a former adviser to Bill Clinton," Chozick and Eder noted.

However, the New York Post reported on May 26, 2013, that Cooper is "a former employee of strategy group Teneo." Cooper's bio was scrubbed from Teneo's website, but a cache link reveals it once noted, "In addition to his role with Teneo, Mr. Cooper serves as Senior Advisor to President William J. Clinton. Mr. Cooper advises President Clinton on a broad range of issues, including finances, business matters, public affairs and politics. Additionally, Mr. Cooper advises and assists in operating the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Family Foundation. As a key member of his inner-most team, Mr. Cooper's advice and influence is unrivalled."

Cooper is an active consensus member of the American Security Project, according to its website. "The Consensus for American Security is an initiative of influential military and national security leaders who have come together to provide mechanisms in order to create long-term consensus around the big strategic national security issues facing our country, including: nuclear weapons, energy & climate security, terrorism, our economic competitiveness, public diplomacy and comprehensive national security strategy."

"The Consensus members support key policy measures designed to move defense and foreign policies toward a smart and comprehensive 21st century national security strategy; hosting forums and other public events to educate decision makers about the dangers of failing to address today’s threats; outreach to the media; and, encouraging smart and non-partisan discourse among policy makers," the website adds. His bio doesn't mention Teneo.

Some media outlets are reporting that Cooper doesn't work with Bill Clinton anymore. He doesn't seem to have a LinkedIn resume, and his biography at Teneo was scrubbed sometime shortly after December 23, 2012. The earliest capture of Cooper's bio at the Teneo website was from July 9, 2011. An October 23, 2013 American University in Dubai article noted, "AUD students, in Dubai part of the William Jefferson Clinton Scholarship Program, met with Mr. Justin Cooper, AUD Board Member and Senior Advisor to President Clinton, during a brainstorming session recently. Over a casual cup of coffee, Cooper discussed the importance of studying abroad; in addition to the opportunities that AUD is offering them by enriching their education from the social and cultural perspectives. During the meeting, the scholars were briefed about becoming AUD ambassadors in the US, and the role they will play as Clinton Scholars."

Politico's Mike Allen posted a pool report on June 16, 2014, which referred to Cooper as a "former Clinton foundation hand."

"It was a Clinton White House reunion in the Bahamas on Saturday, attended by the former President himself, as Jon Orszag -- former Clinton economic-policy adviser, and brother of Obama’s former budget director -- [got married] to on-air personality Mary Kitchen," the pool report stated. "The ceremony was officiated by James Carville, and attendees included Sean Rad, CEO and founder of Tinder, along with his girlfriend, Alexa Dell; Michael Peterson, son of philanthropist Peter Peterson; former Clinton counselor Doug Band and former Clinton foundation hand Justin Cooper; former Bill Clinton advisor Sara Latham; and former White House aide David Beaubaire. Clinton played a few holes of golf with some of the attendees."

On March 17, 2015 Amy Chozick tweeted that the New York Times "will look into this," after I told her that her article seemed to be wrong about Cooper's current employment. Other media outlets seem to have followed the Times lead, and may be wrongly reporting that he is currently with Teneo. It is possible Cooper returned to Teneo after leaving former President Bill Clinton's service.

Although most media accounts of Kelly's work as an envoy seemed to be enthusiastic, McCabe quoted an unnamed source who complained, “He basically got to ride around developing a book of business, while he waited for his non-compete clause to run out."

"The Secretary of State also traveled with Kelly, including the October 2010 U.S. – Northern Ireland Economics Conference, which Kelly organized and at which the secretary was the featured speaker," McCabe also noted.

"New investment in Northern Ireland by U.S. corporations brings with it new jobs and opportunities for people, particularly young people, says Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton," the US embassy website announced on October 20, 2010. "Clinton hosted a one-day U.S.–Northern Ireland Economic Conference in Washington October 19 to support the peace process and also to enhance and promote U.S. investment and the economic growth of Northern Ireland."

"The conference was focused on promoting investment in Northern Ireland, but also on trade between that region and the United States, which underlines Secretary Clinton’s belief that economic investment is the best means to build on the political progress, says Declan Kelly, the U.S. economic envoy to Northern Ireland and organizer of the conference.

“Northern Ireland is a very good fit because of its location, obviously, its English-speaking work force, the time zone, the high level of education, and the common ties with the United States,” Kelly said during a post-conference press briefing. Kelly was appointed as the economic envoy September 11, 2009, by Clinton."

"Kelly, 41, an Irish-born journalist turned business CEO, was appointed to his new post last September by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the Obama administration continued to chart its course in the North," BostonIrish.com reported on February 6, 2010. "Clinton, whose presidential campaign he advised and supported, buttressed the appointment by visiting Belfast shortly after he was was named."

On October 12, 2009 link), then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued joint press statements with First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Stormont Castle in Northern Ireland. "I have brought with me our new economic envoy, Declan Kelly, who is already hard at work, fostering economic ties," Clinton said. Robinson added, "We are delighted that the ambassador is with us today. And you will note the possessive word "our" economic advisor, Declan Kelly, who has rolled his sleeves up, and he has been dying to work immediately, and we enjoy working with him. And he inspires us with his own drive and enthusiasm." McGuinness said, "On the economic front, we are absolutely inspired by Secretary Clinton's appointment of Declan Kelly as the economic advisor. And we believe that there will be good news stories, even within days, on that front, because economic development we have put as the major issue in our program for government." Clinton also appeared with Kelly at a meeting with the Northern Ireland Business Working Group.

On March 16, 2010, Clinton joked at the National Gala of the American Ireland Fund in Washington, DC, "And thank you, Declan Kelly. You have once again proven the truth of one of my husband’s rules of politics: Always be introduced by someone you have appointed to high office." She added, "Declan is doing a wonderful job."

"And I especially want to thank and recognize Declan Kelly, the U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland," Clinton said on October 19, 2010 at the U.S.-Northern Ireland Economic Conference held in Washington, DC. "I appointed Declan to this post in September 2009, and just a little more than a year later, I think, it proves the wisdom of that appointment. He was asked to direct private sector outreach and encourage and coordinate U.S. investment in Northern Ireland. And he’s been working very closely with the Government in Northern Ireland as well as the Government in the U.K. and Ireland itself. Invest NI and the U.S. and Northern Ireland working groups have really come together to look for new opportunities that we can help promote and achieve. And thanks to these combined efforts, as Declan has said, American companies have recently created more than 1,000 new jobs in Northern Ireland, including 100 jobs created by GE Energy and more than 300 in the Belfast office of the New York Stock Exchange."

That same day, Kelly said at a teleconference, "I had the privilege of organizing the conference on behalf of the Secretary, and it was attended by the First Minister of Northern Ireland Peter Robinson, the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, and Minister Arlene Foster and Minister Reg Empey and Assemblyman Alban Maginness. It was also attended by Owen Paterson, the British Secretary of State to Northern Ireland and Peter Power, the Irish Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, both of whom had separate discussions in addition to the conference with Secretary Clinton."

On December 7, 2012, Secretary Clinton and her former envoy appeared together at a luncheon hosted by the Ireland Funds. Clinton said, "And I, too, will acknowledge and thank our former Economic Envoy Declan Kelly who has done so much to help bring more investors to the region, and I thank you for your contributions, Declan."

Ryan Grim reported for Huffington Post on November 14, 2011, "As part of his deal with FTI, Kelly told HuffPost, he had agreed to a noncompete clause that prevented him from establishing a rival firm within two years of leaving FTI. Hillary Clinton had just been named to President Barack Obama's Cabinet and had something to keep him busy."

Kelly told Huffington Post, "When she wasn't successful [in her presidential campaign] and she became secretary of state, she asked me if I wanted to do a stint as an envoy to Ireland, and it came at the right time in my life. So I gave up everything, resigned from the job and agreed to a two-year noncompete, and went to Northern Ireland and did that job for two years. And I resigned in March of this year, and in June we started the new business."

"As the Northern Ireland envoy, Kelly took no salary from State, he said, but was afforded one staffer in Washington and reimbursed for coach flights across the pond. On his own dime, he said, he hired a staff of five and paid for office space at a cost of $1.4 million, while also giving up potentially millions in salary over the two-year period. Kelly's assertions may sound extreme, but ambassadors and high-level envoys are known to spend heavily with their personal money while in the job. The White House referred questions to the State Department; a spokesman there didn't respond to requests for comment."

"Kelly has brought that staff with him to his new investment firm," Grim noted.

He bragged to Huffington Post in 2011, "I didn't need the State Department or the U.S. government's help to access the economic elite in Ireland. I have advised four prime ministers in Ireland, all pro bono. I had a business in Ireland for over a decade, I have a home there, I am an Irish citizen and I know virtually every senior business leader in the country. I've gained no personal benefit from this at all."

"The formation of Kelly’s newest venture was in the works for some time before Kelly resigned," the Irish Echo reported on August 4, 2011. "A trademark application was made for the Teneo company logo in April, 2010, and an application for funding was also submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation months before its approval in early June, giving the new company a huge grant for over three million dollars in start up cash."

The Irish Echo claimed that a "U.S. State Department official" told it that "the State Department did provide administrative support and reimbursement for travel expenses." It also reported, "Several staff employed by the State Department as administrative support for the envoy position while Mr. Kelly was envoy are now working at Teneo."

According to his LinkedIn resume, Stephen W. Meahl was an advisor to the Office of the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland from January 2010 to May 2011, then became a Senior Associate at Teneo Holdings in June 2011, Vice President in 2012, and Senior Vice President in December of 2014.

"Mr. Meahl is a Senior Vice President with Teneo Strategy," his Teneo bio states. "He also serves as Chief of Staff to Teneo’s Chairman and CEO where he is responsible for managing a wide range of special initiatives across the firm’s operating divisions."

The bio adds, "Prior to joining Teneo, Mr. Meahl worked for the US Department of State’s Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland where he was responsible for executing a number special initiatives to help drive economic development in support of the ongoing peace process. He began his career with Fidelity Investments." In 2009, an earlier version of Meahl's Teneo bio, added, "In his role, Mr. Meahl was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the office including all media and communications. He was also responsible for relationship management with key State Department and foreign officials, and coordinated the development of major initiatives within the office."

Therese O'Higgins, according to her LinkedIn resume, is now a Vice President at Teneo, and also "worked at the Office of the US State Department's Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland where she worked closely with the Ireland Funds and Northern Ireland Science Park to set up the US–NI Mentorship Program. The US-NI Mentorship Program is a planned one-year work placement for recent graduates from Northern Ireland to work with leading corporations in the US. Therese continues to run this program in collaboration with the aforementioned parties."

The US-NI Mentorship Program was founded by Declan Kelly when he worked as Clinton's envoy. In a message on its website, Kelly writes, "From September 2009 until May 2011, I had the privilege of serving as the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland. In that role, my office worked to increase economic opportunities between the US and Northern Ireland, and to develop programs that would have a long‐term impact on the region. One of the first things I discovered about Northern Ireland was the strength of the region’s incredible young people. Northern Ireland’s universities produce some of the highest quality graduates anywhere in the world, and these graduates play a key role in attracting foreign direct investment to the region.When I stepped down as Envoy, I was anxious to continue to support the US-NI Mentorship Program. Feedback on the program from both participants and host companies continues to be exceptionally positive and I am pleased to report that many of the world’s leading corporations have signed up for the program again for this year."

"The program selects approximately twenty graduates, from across Northern Ireland, and places them in US corporations for a one‐year work period. The graduates are individuals who have demonstrated academic promise and have shown an interest in developing entrepreneurship and management skills.The goal of the program is for the participants to be able to return to Northern Ireland with the skills and experience to start businesses and become business leaders in their communities. Having had the opportunity to meet with many of the participants of the program, I can tell you that they will be well prepared to return and invest in the future of Northern Ireland."

"Therese O'Higgins of @Teneo hands out awards at 3rd US-Northern Ireland Mentorship Program graduation event," @IRLFunds tweeted on November 6, 2013, including a picture from the event.

At the program's website (which mentions that she is a Teneo Vice President, US-Northern Ireland Mentorship Executive Director Therese O'Higgins writes, "Having been involved in this program from the outset, it is truly rewarding to see the program continue to enjoy success and attract the highest standards of graduates ."

"On March 12, 2015 US-NI Mentorship Program participants attended a lunch in New York City with Founder, Declan Kelly," the US-NI website announced. "The lunch was held at Teneo Holdings headquaters, New York celebrating the fifth year of the US-NI Mentorship Program."

So far, I've been unable to find a biography for O'Higgins on Teneo's website, so I'm unsure she still works there. Along with former Senior Associate Monica Milton, whose expunged Teneo bio, reveals she "joined Teneo after working with Declan Kelly during his appointment as the U.S. Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland for the U.S. Department of State. In that role, she was responsible for coordination with the U.S. Government including organizing official events, and conferences working with senior State Department officials and representatives from foreign governments. Prior to this, Ms. Milton was the Community Liaison Officer at the U.S. Embassy Muscat, Oman working as the Ambassador's representative managing internal and external programs as a key member of the in-country country team. Ms. Milton also represented the U.S. in a diplomatic role during two assignments at the U.S. Embassy, Cairo, Egypt assigned to the Defense Attach'e Office and the Public Affairs Office. Ms. Milton has also lived in Saudi Arabia."

According to his Teneo biography, Steven Sullivan, the current Chief Administration Officer and Chief Financial Officer also worked with Declan Kelly in the envoy's office.

"Prior to joining Teneo, Mr. Sullivan served as Deputy to the U.S. State Department’s Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, helping to drive investment to the region from U.S. corporations and facilitate bi-lateral trade. In this position, Mr. Sullivan was responsible for relationship management and communications. Prior to his role with the U.S. Envoy, Mr. Sullivan worked in GE Capital’s Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions Group focusing on restructuring strategies for GE Capital’s non-core assets, primarily consisting of commercial real estate, commercial equipment leasing and consumer finance platforms. Mr. Sullivan has also held positions within GE Capital’s Commercial Real Estate Division with responsibilities ranging from financial planning & analysis, loan restructuring, and transaction structuring."

According to the Trademark Encyclopedia and Trademarks411, the same firm, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP, that registered Teneo Strategy Consulting LLC on November 18, 2009, also seems to have worked with it on trademarks.