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 The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee has been
investigating since 2013 whether Teneo had improper access to the
highest levels of U.S. government while Clinton, the favorite to
become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, was secretary of
state.
In its letter, a copy of which was given to Reuters by the
committee, Teneo declined to help with most of the panel's queries,
including questions about a previously unreported three-hour meeting
at the consulting firm's office in 2012 with Cheryl Mills when she
was chief of staff to Clinton at the State Department.
Founders and other workers at Teneo have also worked for the
Clintons, the State Department, the Clinton Foundation or a
combination of the three. Teneo describes itself as "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."
Teneo's connections with the Clintons exemplify to Hillary Clinton's
political opponents what they say are her overly close ties to
corporations that have paid her and her husband, former President
Bill Clinton, for speeches and donated to her family's charities.
 Clinton has dismissed such suggestions as baseless smears for
political gain.
Teneo came under scrutiny by the Judiciary Committee as part of its
investigation into whether there were any ethics rules broken by the
State Department when it granted a waiver to Huma Abedin, who was
one of Clinton's closest aides at the department, to earn income
outside the government.
Abedin is now vice chair of Clinton's campaign.
In his reply to the committee dated Oct. 23, Teneo Chief Executive
Declan Kelly, who was a special envoy under Clinton at the State
Department, dismissed the committee's suggestion that the firm may
have had undue sway at the State Department, saying Teneo is
"committed to the highest ethical and professional standards."
"Our work on matters occurring in or around Washington, D.C.,
represents an insignificant percentage of our total business," Kelly
wrote in the letter, the firm's most substantial comment on its
State Department links to date.
SPECIAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE
Most of the committee's 16 questions to Teneo were about Abedin.
For a time in 2012 through early 2013, Abedin simultaneously had
four overlapping sources of income: the State Department, Teneo, the
Clinton Foundation and Clinton's private office.
Abedin has said her work arrangement was approved by State
Department lawyers and that she did no work for Teneo involving the
department, nor was she asked to. Clinton has said she was not
directly involved in getting Abedin the waiver, known as special
government employee status, which loosens some ethics restrictions
that bind full-time government employees.
The special status was created in the 1960s to allow the government
to temporarily bring in expertise from the private sector.
The committee's chairman, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, has
contended it may have been inappropriate to use the waiver for
Abedin as she already worked for the government when the application
was made; he also said she worked under that status for longer than
the designation permits.
The letter from Grassley to Teneo also asked about the three-hour
meeting between Mills and officials at Teneo's New York City offices
in June 2012.
That meeting, along with emails involving Teneo officials and
Clinton's aides at the State Department, may undermine the assertion
by Abedin and others that Teneo had no business before the State
Department, which could present conflicts of interests.
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The meeting appears on Mills' State Department schedules obtained by
the committee, but the schedules do not describe its purpose or
other participants. The meeting happened a few weeks after Abedin
was granted the waiver, and about a month before she started working
for Teneo, but it is not clear whether this subject arose.
Kelly's letter declined to address that meeting along with most of
the other questions posed by Grassley, citing a possible conflict
with its cooperation with a similar inquiry into Abedin's employment
by the State Department's inspector general.
He also declined to address Grassley's questions on whether Teneo
ever had business before the State Department, whether on its own
behalf or on behalf of a client
Teneo's contract with Abedin, who was paid to be a senior adviser to
Teneo from July 27, 2012, until February 2013 - when she left the
State Department - required that she do nothing for Teneo that
"would conflict with her duties" at the State Department, Kelly
wrote.
James Olecki, Teneo's chief operating officer, declined to answer
questions about the firm's meeting with Mills or the committee's
broader queries.
Mills could not be reached for comment and an attorney representing
her declined to comment. Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary
Clinton, declined to discuss the meeting on the record. Abedin and
her lawyers did not respond to questions.
A spokesman for the State Department's inspector general declined to
say whether the office would share any material it had received from
Teneo with the Senate committee or discuss its investigation of
Abedin.
"ACCESS TO INFLUENCERS"
Before Teneo, Kelly was appointed by Clinton in 2009 to be the U.S.
special envoy to Northern Ireland. He left that role in 2011 around
the same time he co-founded Teneo with Doug Band, a former close
aide to Bill Clinton who also played a founding role in the Clinton
Foundation, and Paul Keary.
Teneo sells advice about investments, management, recruitment and
public relations to organizations that have included Coca-Cola,
FIFA, Dow Chemical and other entities that have interests before the
U.S. government.
The firm touts its connections with powerful figures. Part of its
contract signed in 2012 with Dow, for example, was to provide
"access to and key relationships as well as connection with key
influencers," according to documents obtained by Reuters.
The committee's Republican majority said it was obliged to see
whether government ethics rules were followed at Clinton's State
Department, and criticized Teneo for making that harder.
"It's disappointing that the company is refusing to provide
documents that would help the committee identify and correct
potential failures by our government," Taylor Foy, a spokesman for
the committee majority, said in an email.
(Additional reporting by Brian Grow and Joshua Schneyer; Editing by
Leslie Adler)
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