Bill Clinton receives “expensive gifts” and is “personally paid” by sponsors of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering of the global elite that the former president hosts every year.
The surprise claim was made by Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s longtime aide and the co-founder of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), in a Nov. 17, 2011 email released by WikiLeaks on Thursday.
Band appeared frustrated that he was forced to sign a conflict of interest policy for his roles as a CGI board member and adviser to the Clinton Foundation while Clinton did not.
“I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi,” he wrote in an email to John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman whose hacked emails were released by WikiLeaks.
“Oddly, wjc does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc,” added Band.
“I could add 500 different examples of things like this,” he continued.
The email was sent at a time of major upheaval at the Clinton Foundation and its related entities.
Other emails released from the Podesta hack show Band and Clinton daughter Chelsea engaged in a bitter turf battle over the direction of the Clinton Foundation. Chelsea Clinton, who took on a larger role at the Clinton Foundation in 2011, accused Band of “hustling” business for Teneo at CGI meetings.
The former first daughter was a proponent of “professionalizing” the Clinton non-profits. Band appears to have resisted the idea, or at least disagreed with its findings.
Band expressed his displeasure with Chelsea Clinton in other emails to Podesta and Cheryl Mills, who at the time was Hillary Clinton’s State Department chief of staff.
In a Nov. 12, 2011 email, Band referred to Clinton as a “spoiled brat kid.”
“I get the sense that they are trying to put some sort of wrong doing on me after the audit as a crutch to change things,” Band told Podesta in his email several days later.
He added that if he didn’t speak up about others’ conflicts of interest, “I may regret it.”
Band reportedly severed ties with the Clintons last year.