Bill Clinton: Teneo Capital No Longer Paying Me

WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton has ended his paid relationship with the global financial consulting and private equity firm Teneo Capital, he confirmed in a statement Thursday night.

Clinton's statement was in apparent response to a New York Post report that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had forced her husband to leave the firm to avoid the perception of conflicts of interest. The Post also reported that longtime Clinton aide Douglas Band was leaving the Clinton Global Initiative to focus on Teneo.

Band, in fact, is not leaving the Clinton Global Initiative, said Clinton. As for his own situation, "I did not sever my financial relationship with Teneo. I changed it," Clinton said. "Because of the invaluable help I continue to receive with my business relationships and speaking engagements, as well as with CGI and other philanthropic activities, like the Ireland investment conference, I felt that I should be paying them, not the other way around."

In November, The Huffington Post first reported Clinton's professional relationship with Teneo, founded by Band and Declan Kelly. The Post report said Secretary Clinton believed "the former president has 'damaged' the 'Clinton brand' by entangling himself and his organizations in arrangements that could appear questionable." As HuffPost reported in November, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was also brought on by Teneo to serve on its paid advisory board.

Kelly, born and raised in Ireland, is a former top State Department envoy who served under Secretary Clinton and was a major donor to her presidential campaign and longtime friend.

The collapse of MF Global, a bankrupt hedge fund run by Jon Corzine, a top Democrat and former New Jersey governor, further damaged the Clinton brand. In November, HuffPost reported that Teneo's senior vice president, Tom Shea, was an aide to both Corzine and then-President Clinton and a onetime high-level State Department official. In December, the Post followed up with a scoop that Corzine's firm had been paying Teneo $125,000 a month for consulting services.

In February, Politico reported that Clinton was altering his relationship with Teneo.

On Thursday, the Post reported that President Clinton told Band, his longtime adviser and founder of the Clinton Global Initiative, to choose between CGI and Teneo. Band chose Teneo, the newspaper said. In his statement Thursday evening, Clinton said, "I hope and believe" Band is staying at the Clinton Global Initiative. Band told HuffPost that he is, in fact, staying.

"I couldn’t have accomplished half of what I have in my post presidency without Doug Band," Clinton said. "Doug is my counselor and a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, which was created at his suggestion. He tirelessly works to support the expansion of CGI’s activities and my other foundation work around the world. In our first 10 years, Doug’s strategic vision and fundraising made it possible for the foundation to survive and thrive. I hope and believe he will continue to advise me and build CGI for another decade."

The former president also responded indirectly to the Post's report that Hillary Clinton was preparing to "nest" at the Clinton Global Initiative after her term as secretary of state expires, perhaps in preparation for a presidential bid.

"The foundation’s rapid growth, the management strains caused by our work in Haiti -- following similar efforts in the Gulf after Katrina and in Southeast Asia after the tsunami -- and the fact that our Chairman Bruce Lindsey and I aren’t getting any younger, convinced me to undertake a management review to clarify what we needed to do as an organization to assure another decade of success," Clinton said in his statement.

"The review produced several positive suggestions, the most important of which was that we hire a full-time, New York-based foundation president, which we are currently in the process of doing. Outside of my foundation work, my personal office will handle special projects like Haiti and my work for Ireland, as well as my political and business activities."

Comments

[VoteEarlyVoteOften]

11:41 AM on 03/02/2012

You have to type like an illllliterate here or you end up in pennnnding prissson

[KCY]

11:49 AM on 03/02/2012

And then when you misspell a word because you're in such a hurry, someone always makes a comment telling you to get an education or "spell check is your friend" lol I have yet to find a spell check on these boards.

[beawild]

11:39 AM on 03/02/2012

Oh, here it comes. The favorite whipping boy of the right AND the left. Bill is out of office, I have no problem with him making as much money as he can by any legal means.

Clinton is still the one president who would win in a landslide if it were legally possible for him to run for a third term.

[Know-some-secrets]

12:18 PM on 03/02/2012

You can fool all of the people some of the time.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have sold their nation out to make themselves super rich members of the 1 percent. We are fortunate that enough Americans of all stripes recognize to prevent the Clintons from ever moving back to the White House.

[beawild]

02:38 PM on 03/02/2012

Oh, look who showed up to prove my point. The #1 Clinton hater.

Shoo, I got no time for you.

[VoteEarlyVoteOften]

11:37 AM on 03/02/2012

conflicts of interest? $Bill? Never happen

[linbianism]

11:29 AM on 03/02/2012

i think its cool when people make tons of money doing nothing

[pinetarred]

11:04 AM on 03/02/2012

What's this called??...Under the Clinton administration more US Crude was exported than all other presidents combined...Source; US Crude Exports a government site...

[pinetarred]

11:01 AM on 03/02/2012

$125,000 a month for consulting services??? Again we get a slap in our faces!!! They sound like what most politicians who have fed for decades off the taxpayers...A bribery enterprise...

[Know-some-secrets]

12:42 PM on 03/02/2012

and $75 million in "speaking and consulting fees" from grateful corporations since he left office.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58770.html

this was also the source for some of the more than $13 million Hillary Clinton "loaned" her campaign and then she "forgave" the loan. McClatchy news called in creative fundraising to circumvent limitations on campaign contributions, others might say "money laundering."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/05/08/36441/clintons-campaign-loans-raise.html

[Big Dawg 54]

10:40 AM on 03/02/2012

Guess there were no willing - chubby - interns available to help Billy through the day. If that were the case.... no need to hang around.

[DrSkepsis]

10:32 AM on 03/02/2012

"I did not sever my financial relationship with Teneo. I changed it,"

And, of couse, it depends on what the meaning of it is.

[beawild]

11:37 AM on 03/02/2012

What it means is that now he won't be compensated. Not too difficult to understand.

[DrSkepsis]

11:45 AM on 03/02/2012

Oh, there are ways. I'll bet they employ interns.

[Know-some-secrets]

12:45 PM on 03/02/2012

What is means is that he will do a better job of hiding how he is compensated. He is one shady, profiteering businessman, selling influence worldwide at the expense of his nation.

[RJofDC]

10:31 AM on 03/02/2012

Come back Bill - all is forgiven!!!!!!

[VoteEarlyVoteOften]

11:38 AM on 03/02/2012

Hardly

[Matt12]

10:20 AM on 03/02/2012

Man, this guy doesn't get it. Ethics matter!! Can you imagine what the Clintons would do if Sec. Hilary Clinton was elected president? It would be back to the corrupt WH

[papau]

10:38 AM on 03/02/2012

Ethics matter - and in the Clinton WH you had great ethics - especially compared to the sell out to the corporations that was GWBush and to only a slightly lesser extent Obama.

But if a BJ is important to you, a Bill's hetro one is on record, as are the in the closet non-hetro activities of a few GOP Politicians. - and the out of the closet folks might annoy you also.

[Matt12]

11:18 AM on 03/02/2012

No! It's not about an old fashioned BJ; rather, it’s about the abolition of the Glass Stiegel Act that made his supporters richer than ever imagined as well as his "advisers,” but sent the country into the ditch. It's about the terrible education system he left behind, it's about the terrible health care system he left behind and it's about the lying as trading currency i.e meaning of “is”. Because of his poor background, he knew better.

George Bush II is another deplorable story altogether == but again, he followed the neo cons to get the country into war with Iraq, Right?

[theobserver4]

11:25 AM on 03/02/2012

the answer was not Citizens United, it was public financing of campaigns.

[reality4u2]

10:17 AM on 03/02/2012

Word is he left because he felt the babes at the place weren't "hot" enough...

[VoteEarlyVoteOften]

11:38 AM on 03/02/2012

No fat file clerks?

[Ldenver]

09:56 AM on 03/02/2012

Bill Clinton sold our Nuclear Secrets to China while he was in office...yet you never hear about that anymore...this guy is a PIG....

[williamtkingIII]

11:08 AM on 03/02/2012

Do you have any proof that you would like to share with the rest of the class to back up your statement?

[VoteEarlyVoteOften]

11:40 AM on 03/02/2012

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/29/25139.shtml

[Ldenver]

12:33 PM on 03/02/2012

It was reported on YEARS ago...look it up yourself ..it is not my responsibility to keep all you sheeple informed...

[lloydc123]

09:48 AM on 03/02/2012

I voted for him twice, have not respect for him now.

[WiltonDiary]

09:58 AM on 03/02/2012

YOU never voted for him once! President Clinton is the MOST respected US President alive.

[cigi]

11:03 AM on 03/02/2012

Wilton, I understand your post, but I voted for Clinton twice and did it living in Texas! In the past decade we have learned a whole lot about the man and I am not speaking of his dalliances with one woman or another. He sold us out with NAFTA, he worked hand in hand with Phil Gramm to reverse Glass-Spiegel, and he walked away from poor people with his policies that were crafted between him and the GOP. He gave us Larry Summers and Robert Reuben policies and quite frankly those have been kicking the middleclass in the ass for the last 12 years. He chose money and power as his objective while in office and for all these reasons I too like lloydc have no respect for him. He came into office owing a lot of money and he has prospered handsomely since he left. He is a part of a system that is killing democracy in this country and has turned it into a fascist corporatist State.....all we need now is a one-man dictator...his friend Rahm Emmanuel comes to mind.

[oilfield]

11:48 AM on 03/02/2012

wow, the internet age blessed him with a great economy, and voters blessed him with a good congress.

[pepper1311]

09:46 AM on 03/02/2012

He didn't get enough when he cut Medicade to the bone.

[Gentleman Agitator]

09:44 AM on 03/02/2012

....Secretary Clinton believed "the former president has 'damaged' the 'Clinton brand'....

Yeah, that says it all. We do not have royal families in America only "brands" of either money, power or both. Branding is for products or services, not people!

[theobserver4]

11:26 AM on 03/02/2012

corporations are people....people are brands....services are favors