Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

NYE FOIA Dump Shows UN Wanting US Names, Rubio "Scared of DeMint"

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 -- Among the more than 3000 Hillary Clinton email that the US State Department released or dumped on New Years Eve, there are 45 which mention UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Those in which Jeffrey Feltman was chosen to head UN Political Affairs - by the US - are nearly entirely redacted.

Not so an email in which Hillary Clinton in July 2012 recounts being asked by Ban for the US name; the subject line is “High Level” and so Inner City Press surmises this was the High Level Post-2015 panel announced that month, with John Podesta as the US name.

Another redacted email has Israel's then-Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor speaking (about Turkey) with Ban's “right hand Kim Won Soo.” On Palestine, a summary is given of (part time) UN official “Terje Larsen's vanity dinner.” Yemen's then Ambassador to the US says a long goodbye to Huma Abadin - contrast to the US-supported Saudi coalition bombing Sana'a tonight, on New Years Eve.

On the political front, this email snarks on cloture about Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, saying that Rubio was “scared of DeMint.” We'll have more on this.

Back on November 30 among the 5,109 Hillary Clinton emails released by the US State Department was this one from October 2012 from Jeffrey Feltman, then already ostensibly with and for the UN, to Jake Sullivan about Lebanon.

Feltman forwarded the US State Department a copy of his own email to “his guy” in Lebanon, British UN official Derek Plumbly and asks for US advice on whom he should call.

Inner City Press on March 28, 2012 first reported that Feltman would take over UN Department of Political Affairs from fellow American B. Lynn Pascoe, and asked if it was wise, to whom would Feltman be loyal. Now the question arises: why was Feltman still in October 2012, after starting with the UN on July 2, 2012, forwarding his emails to the US State Department?

On December 1, 2014, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, transcript here:

Inner City Press: about Mr. Feltman, yesterday, as happens monthly, there was a release of… of e-mails by the US State Department. And without getting into all the… all 5,000 of the e-mails, I wanted to ask about the ones that involve Mr. Feltman, specifically in the time frame after he left the State Department and came to the UN. So, there’s an e-mail in 19 October 2012. This is months after he was at the UN, in which he forwards to Jake Sullivan and others in the State Department his communications with Derek Plumbly about Lebanon. And he says, “Here’s my communications with my guy in Lebanon”, redacted, redacted, redacted, “please tell me what you think and advise.” And I guess I wanted to ask you, is it… what is the… what’s the protocol for a former… of any government, not just the US, for a UN official to share what are presumably confidential UN communications with his previous employer, and how would you… how do you respond to this?

Spokesman: I think the way to look at it is that, I think, through our mediation efforts, UN officials are often in touch with Foreign Ministries or permanent missions and share our analysis. And that’s often how we get our work done. I’m not going to comment on the exact… you know, what exactly was said. I haven’t seen the e-mail. But I think it’s… you know, we have contact, and we share our analysis with members of the Security Council, with permanent missions and Foreign Ministries.

Inner City Press: My question is one of the e-mails… in one of the e-mails, Mr. Feltman says, I’ve tried to send this through Hotmail, but it didn’t work, which to me implies it wasn’t necessarily as a UN official. Like, would you say… in what you’ve described as the protocol, should this be done very clearly as a UN official seeking advice from the…?

Spokesman: As I said, I think there is nothing untoward with senior UN officials who we often… in dealing with mediation, we need to consult with different sides and share analysis and share information.

Inner City Press: [Did he] share with others, other than the US?

Spokesman: I’ll leave it at that.

On October 20, 2012, the State Department's Elizabeth Dibble says she spoke with Feltman; in September, Feltman told Huma Abedin he's walk on hot coals for Hillary. He offered to cancel a meeting with Esther Brimmer in order to meet with Hillary in the Waldorf -- saying he had problems responding with hotmail, that the 90s may have ended. He was not using his UN email address.
We'l have more on this.

Also in the November 30 release is an email that in Eastern Congo, the M23 rebels did NOT loot the Central Bank in Goma -- Inner City Press in 2012 questioned the New York Times reporting that that this did, in fact, happen - and an evergreen line, that “Ban's gambit didn't work out too well.” What wa about Syria, but has been repeated for example with the faux ceasefire on Yemen. We'll have more on this.

Back on August 31 among the 4,368 Hillary Clinton emails released by the US State Department were only 17 that mention Libya. In one, forwarded by Feltman, a Qaddafi staffer was angry at P.J. Crowley's failure to apologize, here.

(In another just released email, Feltman bragged how his interview with An-Nahar pushed Nasrallah out of the news, "HBJ" loved it, here.)

Feltman is cc-ed on a "sensitive but not classified" email about February 2010 Egypt being "amazed" that Hillary Clinton flew over on the way to Qatar and Saudi Arabia without stopping.

Another of the 17 email mentioning Libya was mostly about promoting the US' concern about Haiti, here.

By contrast, 38 emails cite "Sudan," including this one in which Jimmy Carter offers help on that country, Korea, Cuba and "the Middle East."

Among those few that mention UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on August 26, 2010, Huma Abedin wrote to Hillary Clinton that "Ban ki-Moon will formally welcome NATO logistical support in Pakistani flood relief."

Back on July 31 among the 1,356 Hillary Clinton emails released by the US State Department on July 31 are only 14 which mention Libya.

There is the threat of Gaddafi staying at his UN Permanent Representative's house in Engelwood, New Jersey, then that getting canceled.

(There is an email to Cheryl Mills from Martin Edelman, citing "support in Israel for dialogue with Syria... chess game with Iran.)

There is then-US, now-UN official Jeffrey Feltman noting that US funding might go to an NGO headed by a Gaddafi, here.

The newly released emails mention Feltman's "boss" Ban Ki-moon 12 times.

One was from Strobe Talbott, about dining with Ban (who will be in DC against next week, here) and trying to find the right "channel" to reach Hillary on, here.

One is a "Call Sheet" for Hillary Clinton to call Ban on August 24, 2009, starting "You are calling UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to ask him to co-host with you an event at UNGA to advance the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security."

Another email, which Inner City Press reported a month ago, is about NOT having UN Food and Agriculture Organization chief Jacques Diouf host the meeting.

There is one email that mentions the UN Development Program, UNDP - but it is hard to read, literally: apparently a hard-copy.

There are 16 emails mentioning Sri Lanka. One of them also mentions Ban, whose record on Sri Lanka continues to be questioned today, but most of which are about responding to the Government of Sri Lanka complaining about Hillary Clinton linking their army to rape in a September 30, 2009 speech. It is "put to bed" by a letter to Sri Lanka's then Foreign Minister.

Morocco is mentioned only three times: the Forum for the Future twice, and once concerning urging Guinea's Dadis Camera to seek exile in Morocco or another French-speaking country.

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