By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph July 7, 2007
Hillary Clinton's chief strategist has been accused of illegally monitoring the emails of a former business associate who started a rival company, according to a lawsuit filed in New York last week.
Mark Penn, a polling guru who secretly advised Tony Blair on tactics to win over traditional Tory voters before the 2005 general election, has denied the allegation.
The case is the latest example of how Mr Penn's high-profile business dealings are threatening to embarrass the Democratic presidential front-runner.
advertisement His dual role - as Sen Clinton's adviser and chief executive of the public relations company Burson-Marsteller - is hampering her campaign to woo the trade union support crucial for any Democrat seeking the party nomination.
The presidents of two big labour unions wrote to Sen Clinton last month to complain that Mr Penn's firm, which represents Cintas, a uniform rental company fighting a unionisation drive, was involved in an "effort to undermine workers' rights".
In a subsequent interview, Teamsters union leader James Hoffa said: "If Hillary is pro-worker and pro-union, she will certainly take steps to rein in Mr Penn. He cannot serve two masters, working for a pro-union candidate and anti-union companies."
Mr Hoffa is the son of Jimmy Hoffa, the legendary Teamsters' boss and gangster associate, who was presumed murdered by a Mob hitman after he disappeared in 1975. Mr Penn said he had "zero involvement" in BursonMarsteller's work for Cintas. "There is no connection whatsoever with her pro-union record," he said.
Leaked comments from Mr Penn's internal blog for colleagues at Burson-Marsteller, which has a staff of 2,500, have revealed further instances of apparent contradictions between his business interests and Clinton campaign policy positions that he helps shape and promote.
The PR firm represents energy, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, some of whose interests are at odds with Sen Clinton's public stance on the environment and health care.
It is not the first time that the outside interests of senior political advisers have posed potential problems for Washington's leaders.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W Bush insisted that Karl Rove, his chief strategist, cease lucrative work for his political consultancy.
Mr Penn, however, denied there was any conflict of interest. "I don't think that there's any obligation that the firm's clients agree on every issue that's out there either with themselves or Sen Clinton," he told Bloomberg News. "Lots of people have lots of disagreements and that doesn't make it a conflict."
Mr Penn has been a key "Clintonista" since 1996 when he helped Bill Clinton to secure a second term as president, advising him to adopt a tough centrist line on crime and the economy and ignore left-leaning Democrats.
Penn, Schoen & Berland, the polling company he co-founded in college in 1975, was paid $3.1 million for its work on Mrs Clinton's 2006 Senate campaign.
The Sunday Telegraph revealed that Mr Penn was secretly advising Tony Blair before the 2005 general election. Indeed, in his blog he wrote enthusiastically about his invitation from Mr Blair to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - the first time he had attended the gathering of international powerbrokers.
In a separate development, Sen Clinton's former finance director, David Rosen, has been charged with filing fictitious reports that misstated contributions for a 2000 Holly-wood fund-raising gala, the Justice Department said on Friday.
The FBI previously said in court papers that it had evidence that the former first lady's campaign deliberately understated its fundraising costs so it would have more money to spend on her campaign.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/08/wclinton108. xml
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm