Aide frets over conflicts of interest

An aide to Bill Clinton worried that the former president would be found to have serious conflicts of interest if the Clinton Foundation adopted stricter operating guidelines, according to an alleged email posted by WikiLeaks.

“WJC may have some real serious conflicts if we start to make too many rules,” Justin Cooper, an adviser to Clinton after he left the White House, purportedly wrote, using former President William Jefferson Clinton’s initials. “It may be time to update some procedures but we can not ignore the nexus of WJC’s life.”

The note posted Friday on WikiLeaks is among more than 47,000 alleged emails released so far from the personal account of John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The campaign has blamed the Russian government for hacking attacks on Democratic organizations and individuals in an effort to sway the election, while cautioning that some of the documents may be bogus or doctored.

Spokesmen for the Clinton Foundation and the former president declined to comment. An attorney for Cooper didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cooper’s purported email was dated Nov. 17, 2011. It was a response to a message from Doug Band, another longtime Clinton aide, that was previously disclosed. Angered by Chelsea Clinton’s efforts to rein in his own business dealings, Band recounted how he steered his company’s corporate clients to give to the Clinton Foundation while also arranging lucrative paid speeches and consulting jobs for “Bill Clinton, Inc.”