While Hillary Clinton slides, diplomats are held to
tight rules


Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves to Members of the Atlantic City casino workers union members outside the
Taj Mahal Casino after a event in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on July 6, 2016. (Kena Betancur, AFP/Getty Images)

July 7, 2016 3:20 PM

Hillary and Bill Clinton, some argue, expect to be held to a different, more elastic standard than the rest of us. They get away with behavior that might get other politicians indicted, these detractors say, or a government employee sent packing.

I don't know to what extent that may be true, but I do know that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, had to engage with countries that donated to her husband's foundation, an awkward situation ripe for misinterpretation. She also employed senior aides who had financial interests that the State Department never would have countenanced in an ambassador. And she herself handled sensitive information in a manner that would get a Foreign Service officer suspended or dismissed.

Before going to Nicaragua as ambassador in 2008, for example, I had to present my financial records to the State Department's ethics office. They reviewed my portfolio and informed me that I had to sell my modest holdings in Exxon and General Electric. Exxon operated a small refinery near Managua, and GE owned a quarter share in a Nicaraguan bank. The problem, they explained, is that if a dispute arose that involved another American company and Exxon or GE, and I still owned shares in those companies, it could give the appearance of a conflict of interest.

As it turned out, GE sold its share in the bank shortly after my arrival and I never had anything at all to do with Exxon. Still, I understood and accepted the rationale for selling the stocks.

A few months later, Clinton became secretary of state. While she was in charge of the State Department, her husband's philanthropic creation, the Clinton Foundation, collected millions of dollars in donations from individuals and countries throughout the world. Although it's possible that all of them were motivated by a charitable impulse, they also stood to benefit from good relations with the United States. And how could it hurt to ingratiate yourself to the husband of the secretary of state, an ex-president at that?

Although this arrangement elicited expressions of skepticism, the State Department's ethics office never demanded, and the Clinton Foundation never imposed, a moratorium on foreign contributions.

Just before Christmas in 2009 I received a wooden chess set from a Nicaraguan acquaintance. It was hand-carved and represented the British and Colonial armies at Yorktown, Va. The ethics officer at the embassy consulted with the State Department and was informed that I could not accept the present. They estimated its value at more than $75, which was the cap on gifts.

Not long before I left Nicaragua in 2011 I attended a fundraiser for a local hospital. I bought several raffle tickets and won the grand prize, a small motor bike. Because it was a lottery, and not a gift, I figured I could keep it. No, I was told, return it. The drawing may have been rigged to benefit you.

Like Caesar's wife, we had to remain above all suspicions. Fine. It probably reflected well on American values.

When Clinton became secretary of state, two of her closest confidantes, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, joined her at the department.

Abedin was named deputy chief of staff but remained as a paid consultant to the Clinton Foundation and also worked for Teneo Holdings, a private consulting firm. There, Abedin represented Coca-Cola, among other large companies. She assured government authorities that she would never use the information she acquired at the State Department to help her private clients and was allowed to retain the job with Teneo.

Mills, for her part, initially took an unpaid position at the State Department. During that time she also worked for New York University, for whom she was negotiating with officials in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, to establish a branch campus there. When she took up her permanent position at the State Department as chief of staff, she collected $330,000 from NYU in unused vacation time and severance pay.

Before, during and after Mills' employment at the Department of State, the Emirates donated more than $1 million to the Clinton Foundation and paid the former president several million dollars in speaking fees and for other services.

Of course, these transactions may have been innocent of any ulterior motives. Mills and Abedin may have adhered to the highest ethical behavior. But shouldn't the same ethics office that compels ambassadors to refuse gifts valued at more than $75 have adjudged these various situations, many of them involving millions of dollars, as potential conflicts of interest?

It would seem that there are two standards at play here, a flexible and indulgent one for Hillary Clinton's most senior appointed officials and another for the career members of the Foreign Service. In light of the FBI's investigation into Clinton's personal email server, the same double standard, it would appear, also applies to the handling of sensitive information.

If Foreign Service officers leave a classified cable in their desks overnight instead of the office safe, or are caught taking a classified document home without authorization, they receive a security violation. If they accumulate three or four, they likely would be suspended without pay for a week or two. If this happens several times over five or six years, they would forfeit their security clearance. And without a security clearance they would lose their jobs.

According to FBI Director James Comey, Clinton and her senior aides were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
She sent or received more than 100 cables that contained classified sections. She had multiple private servers over the years and regularly used her mobile device while traveling, all of which could easily have been compromised by a hostile government. And she lied about all of it.

When Comey announced that there was insufficient evidence to recommend prosecution, and that he found "no intentional misconduct" on Clinton's part, there is no reason to doubt him. By all accounts, he is an honorable man.

So, the one remaining sanction on Clinton may be the vote of the people. But must an election really come down to this — a contest between a narcissistic blowhard and a serial prevaricator with an ever-expanding sense of entitlement?

Robert J. Callahan, a retired diplomat and former Chicagoan, served as U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua.

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