CNN: Cheryl Mills Helped Clinton Foundation While Working for State Dept.

Hillary Clinton's top aide at the State Department did work for the Clinton Foundation while employed by the federal government, CNN reports.

The case is yet one more instance raising questions about the possible intermingling of Clinton's work as secretary of state and her family's charity foundation.

According to CNN, Cheryl Mills, who was then Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department, traveled to New York on June 19, 2012, to interview two people to possibly lead the Clinton Foundation.

The Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton herself agreed to rules when she became secretary of state that no activities of the foundation would "create conflicts or the appearance of conflicts for Senator Clinton as Secretary of State."

Mills' attorney told CNN that her duties interviewing the executives were done in an unpaid voluntary capacity and that she paid for the train trip from Washington, D.C., out of her own pocket and not with State Department funds.

The State Department was asked by CNN if Mills need permission for the trip and was told by a spokesperson: "Federal employees are permitted to engage in outside personal activities, within the scope of the federal ethics rules. All federal employees are subject to federal ethics laws and regulations, including rules pertaining to conflicts of interest."

The report comes on the heels of the release of new Clinton emails that suggest contacts between foundation donors and the State Department, and that at least one such donor may have been given some kind of special consideration.

• Judicial Watch's Fitton: New Clinton Emails Came From Huma Abedin's Account
  
• Sen. Tom Cotton: Clinton's Email, Foundation Controversies Not Separate