From: Cheryl Mills
To: Hillary Clinton
Date: 2011-12-13 00:11
Subject: MARI CARMEN
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
RELEASE IN PART
B6
From: Mills, Cheryl D
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 12:11 PM
To: H
Subject: Fw: Mari Carmen
From: Ricki Seidman [mailto
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 10:30 AM
To: Mills, Cheryl D
Subject: RE: Mari Carmen
This is whatI know — the caveat is that Cecilia and I are both concerned that Rubio is not serious and is trying to rehabilitate himself by saying he tried and prevent his closest allies in Miami from denouncing him. Having said that, there is a possibility that this is real or that we can turn it into something real.
Per Mari, Rubio is going to speak in caucus today, say that he has new information about Mari Carmen and wants his colleagues to join him in supporting cloture. [Seems to me a crazy way of going forward if he was too scared of DeMint before, but whatever.] Lindsey Graham will let us know if this happens. If it doesn't, that's a good sign that Rubio is playing her.
If Rubio is serious, we have 4 certain votes for cloture to start: Collins, Scott Brown, Graham and Rubio. Graham has given us who he thinks will come along with Rubio:
Ayotte
McCain
Snowe
Kirk (we would have had Kirk if he were there for the vote last night)
Alexander
Coats
KBH
I'm not sure why he didn't include Murkowski, but I would add her, and Charlie Black thinks he can get Wicker. That would give us a grand total of 13, which is plenty. I don't think that Rubio has communicated to Graham his intentions, I think this is just Graham telling our friend that it's doable, and he will help if Rubio is serious (I assume that Rubio actually teaming up with Graham is a non-starter because of DeMint). Graham will help on his own, and Luke Albee, who helped with Collins, Kirk and others is ready to work all the R chiefs he has relationships with.
Rubio told Mari Carmen that he is meeting with Wendy Sherman today and having lunch with Cecilia on
Wednesday. Rubio also told her that he will be working to set up meetings with the colleagues he thinks he can bring with him (another sign of whether he is serious, although I'm concerned that he is just making busy work for her).
I have told Mari Carmen that to discern whether this is real, Rubio has to tell her when the vote will be and confirm that he is speaking to colleagues today.
The outside groups know nothing of this and have been organized to go all out in criticizing Rubio publicly. I told Mari that she needs to have Felix get all his Miami friends to call Rubio and pressure him to fix this. I also told her to get her friends on the right in El Salvador to push Rubio to fix it, starting with getting a call from Cristiani to Rubio offering to help with anyone else in the Senate.
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
I'm going to see if Arturo Valenzuela can get Bernard Aronson to write an op ed about this travesty, saying to turn it around while there is a chance. I am also going to talk to the outside people I had talking to Senators to be alert to engage again if Rubio is serious.
Mari has done a fabulous job trying to get this done and has been very courageous but it would be even more cruel to her than events have been already for her to be invested in something just designed to make Rubio look good without getting her confirmed.
Let me know what the thinking is there and I will keep doing what I have been doing and anything else you think would be helpful.
In the meantime, it would be great if State is coming up with a Plan B so that there is a job for Mari Carmen to step right into if she is forced to come home (I still can't believe that that could happen but the Senate is so broken that it's probably more likely than not.)
Sorry if this was a little rambling,
Best, r
From: Mills, Cheryl D [mailto:MillsCD©state.gov ]
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 11:05 PM
To: Ricki Seidman
Subject: Re: Mad Carmen
HRC just talked to Mari who said Rubio called her to meet again - any further intell?
From: Mills, Cheryl D
Sent: Monda December 12, 2011 02:37 AM
To: 'rseidma
Let me check re what calls our leg team has her making on this and revert
From: Ricki Seidman [mailto
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 09:18 PM
To: Mills, Cheryl D
Subject: Mad Carmen
Hi,
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
Thanks a lot, best, Ricki
December 9, 2011es.com/2011/12/10/opinionkollins-the-Rhost-of-boyfriends-past.html? r=1&ref=gailcollins
The Ghosts of Boyfriends Past
By GAIL COLLINS
New unnerving development in Congress: Some senators are claiming that a woman
nominated to be ambassador to El Salvador can't have the job because they don't like a
boyfriend she lived with almost 20 years ago.
These days, it's hard enough to get kids to understand the possible future employment
consequences of appearing naked on Facebook. If they hear about this one, they'll give up
entirely.
The debate involves Mari Carmen Aponte, who has been functioning as ambassador under a
recess appointment by President Obama that runs out soon. The Democrats plan to make a
last-ditch attempt to approve the nomination, but the Senate Republicans seem determined to block it.
"All of us think we should have an ambassador in El Salvador, but all of us are concerned
that we get people who we know are the right people," said Senator Jim DeMint of South
Carolina. DeMint claimed the Republicans needed more information on Aponte's relationship with Roberto Tamayo, a Cuban-American insurance salesman with whom she
lived in Washington long ago.
A defecting Cuban intelligence agent claimed in 1993 that Fidel Castro's spies were trying to recruit Aponte through Tamayo, who had friends at the Cuban diplomatic mission in
Washington. However, a retired U.S. counterintelligence agent told The Washington Times
that Tamayo was, in fact, an informant for the F.B.I.
This sounds like a complicated boyfriend. However, who of us does not have a difficult significant other in the distant past? There has to be a statute of limitations on this sort of
thing, and my vote would be for a decade, max.
The government checked Aponte and found no nefarious Cuban connection. She broke up
with Tamayo in 1994 and has received several top-secret security clearances since. She has
many supporters who say she's terrific, including Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey,
who is second to none in his sensitivity on Cuban-related issues. Her supporters cite a list of
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
achievements during her brief tenure as ambassador, one of which was getting El Salvador
to send troops to Afghanistan. (Who knew?)
It's always been hard to get Obama appointees past Senate Republicans. Remember the time when then-Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky held up the confirmation of the deputy U.S.
trade representative because he was angry at Canada for banning the sale of candy-flavored
tobacco? Or when Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama held up 70-plus pending nominations because he wanted to make sure a new F.B.I. explosives testing facility would be located in
Huntsville?
Those were the good-old days.
Now the Senate Republicans appear to be gripped by more cosmic grievances. This week,
they blocked the appointment of Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, to lead
the Consumer Financial Protectio'n Bureau because they disapprove of the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau. Which the Senate approved, with some Republican support, a
year and a half ago.
The Republicans say the bureau, which has never been allowed to do anything, needs to be
reined in. "I talked to the Senate historian, who said never in the history of the United States
Senate has one political party tried to block the nomination of a presidential appointee based
on wanting to change the agency," protested Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio during the
Senate debate. To no effect whatsoever.
Also this week; the Republicans blocked Caitlin Halligan, a moderate and well-qualified
nominee to the federal court, with arguments that the District of Columbia Circuit Court of
Appeals, to which Halligan was nominated, has too light a workload.
But about Aponte. The administration had, at one time, hoped to lure Senator Marco Rubio
of Florida into supporting the nomination because of her backing in the Hispanic
community. However, Rubio recently announced that he will not only oppose Aponte, but
also the proposed new ambassador to Ecuador, and pretty much any nominee that has
anything to do with the Western Hemisphere, because he disapproves of the administration's
Latin America policy.
This is what is known as spreading a wide net.
Whenever these things happen, the Democrats race off to try to placate the aggrieved
Republican. They gave DeMint access to Aponte's F.B.I. file, even though instances of
DeMint's being placated by anything are about as frequent as confirmed sightings of space
aliens.
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
DeMint then complained that the file was out of date. But, by then, he seemed to be losing
interest in the boyfriend issue and had moved on to fuming that while she was in El
people on the need to accept and support the gay lifestyle." Actually, Aponte praised El
Salvador for signing a U.N. declaration for the elimination of violence against gays and
lesbians. In response to a directive from the State Department urging ambassadors to do
something in recognition of Gay Pride Month.
But, really, who's keeping track?
Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2011
Politics shouldn't deny a qualified Latina
BY ROBERT MENENDEZ
http://menendez.senate.gov
Republicans have stalled Mad Carmen Aponte's nomination as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador.
As I sat in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's business meeting participating in
yet another discussion on the nomination of Mari Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to
nomination, after multiple hearings and background briefings, and after agreeing to
break with protocol to allow more than one Republican on the committee to examine
her personal FBI file, my Republican colleagues asked for "just one more classified
hearing" to fully vet her nomination.
One more hearing? Come on, let's be honest: There is no question about Ambassador
Aponte's qualifications or performance on the job; this is just another case of
Republican foot dragging in order to undermine the president's policy objectives.
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
I am especially concerned by the actions of my Senate colleagues who are willing to
see this remarkable Hispanic woman sacrificed to inside-the- Beltway politics, where
the political points gained frombringing down an administration nominee supersede the
value gained from having a superior ambassador in San Salvador promoting and
guarding American interests.
(Mari Carmen Aponte was first nominated by President Obama to serve as U.S.
Ambassador to El Salvador on Dec. 9, 2009, and was recess-appointed to that post on
Aug. 19, 2010. She was re-nominated at the beginning of the 112th Congress.)
Born in Puerto Rico, Ambassador Aponte became the executive director of the Puerto
Rico Federal Affairs Administration in 2001. She has served as a director at the
National Council of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
She has presided over the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia and the
Hispanic National Bar Association.
In addition to fostering a strong U.S.-Salvadoran bilateral relationship that resulted in
President Obama announcing El Salvador as one of four countries chosen to
participate in the Partnership for Growth initiative, she has focused on strengthening
the relationship between the U.S. and Salvadoran business communities and served as
a staunch advocate for U.S. companies.
Perhaps most important, Ambassador Aponte has been an advocate for American
national security and democratic values. As a result of her advocacy, El Salvador is
again a key ally in Central America and its troops are the only ones from a Latin
American country fighting alongside American troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She
has consistently fought Cuba and Venezuela's efforts to gain influence in Central
America and as a result of her negotiating skills, the U.S. and El Salvador will open a
new, jointly-funded, electronic monitoring center that will be an invaluable tool in
fighting transnational crime.
Her Republican detractors originally cited a personal relationship with a Cuban national
as evidence of her unsuitability for office. When facts and files didn't corroborate these
vicious allegations, they changed their tune to decry an editorial written by Ambassador
Aponte on tolerance and non-violence during gay pride month as the basis for their
opposition —an editorial that was ordered by the State Department and which mirrored
a May 2010 decree by Salvadoran President Funes prohibiting discrimination by the
government based on sexual orientation.
The shifting basis of their opposition reveals the true motive for their opposition -
partisan politics, driven by partisan interests that relish their ability to derail an
Administration nominee without regard to the consequences for American foreign
policy.
As a lifelong proponent of democracy in Cuba and an adversary of the Cuban regime, I
have never let down my guard to the subversive nature of the Castro regime, and if I
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05784588 Date: 12/31/2015
had any concern that Ambassador Aponte would let her guard down, I would not be
supporting her today.
I urge my colleagues to support Ambassador Aponte's nomination, put partisan politics
aside, recognize the benefits to America's security and foreign policy interests that her
tenure has delivered, and allow her to continue serving our nation.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and
chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
Read more: http://vvww.miamiherald.com/2011/12/11/v-print/2539387/politics-shouldnt-
deny-a-qualified.html#ixzz1qHaeDjsx
RickiSeidman
202 986 9811 office
See Also US Diplomatic Cable Search
