Leaked emails reveal new details about the role played by the New York-based Irish public relations consultant Declan Kelly in directing funds from his clients to former US president Bill Clinton.
The emails of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman have appeared in the latest tranche published on anti-secrecy website Wikileaks.
They touch on activities of the New York consultancy Teneo, co-founded by Mr Kelly.
One emailed memo says Mr Kelly, brother of former Labour minister Alan Kelly, introduced a Wall Street banker, Bob McCann, head of wealth management at UBS, to Mr Clinton at an event hosted by the American Ireland Fund (AIF), the philanthropic organisation, in 2009.
It indicates Mr Kelly later encouraged Mr McCann to pay Mr Clinton for speeches.
UBS paid the former president $450,000 for speeches in 2011 with a further $450,000 to be paid in 2012, the leaked November 2011 document states.
Dispute
The memo was sent by Mr Clinton’s former top aide
Doug Band
, another cofounder of Teneo, to
Hillary Clinton
campaign chairman
John Podesta
at a time when Mr Band and Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter
Chelsea
were in a dispute over the blurred lines between Teneo and the
Clinton Foundation
.
Chelsea Clinton had complained Teneo was “hustling business” at the foundation’s annual meetings.
The memo said Mr Kelly, who served as Hillary Clinton's economic envoy to Northern Ireland from 2009 to 2011 when she was US secretary of state, had "urged and ensured" the Irish fund, of which he was a trustee at the time, would be a significant donor to the Clinton Foundation.
