A conservative watchdog group is calling for a new federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s actions during her time as secretary of state.
This time, the Democratic presidential front-runner is accused of giving special government access to an investor in a deep-sea mining company due to his ties to Clinton’s son-in-law, hedge fund manager Marc Mezvinsky.
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The group, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), filed a 5 pages complaint with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on Monday, alleging that Clinton “gave a private company special access to the State Department based upon the company’s relationships with Secretary Clinton’s family members and donors to the Clinton Foundation.”
The complaint, first obtained by TIME, comes two weeks after one of Clinton’s court-ordered email releases showed that she asked a senior State Department official to follow up on a special request from Mezvinsky, the husband of her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
The ethics rules forbid government workers from giving speical access or preferential treatment, whether based upon business or personal relationships. Unfortunately, former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s recently released emails indicate that is exactly what happened. FACT’s complaint states:
As evidenced from her recently released emails, it appears that then Secretary Hillary Clinton gave a private company special access to the State Department based upon the company’s relationships with Secretary Clinton’s family members and donors to the Clinton Foundation. The ethics rules simply do not permit government employees to give this type of preferential treatment. We write today to request a full investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding these apparent unethical communications and a determination of whether any laws were violated.
According to the complaint in a May 2012 email, the investor, Harry Siklas, asked Mezvinsky to connect him with Clinton or other State Department officials “to discuss mining and the current legal issues and regulations.”
Three months later, according to State Department emails, Clinton forwarded Siklas’ note to then-deputy secretary of state Thomas Nides, writing, “Could you have someone follow up on this request which was forwarded to me?” Nides replied that he would “get on it.”
