Getting lucrative government contracts is easy – if you know the right people.  And in the case of former ambassador Joe Wilson, husband of former CIA officer Valerie Plame, it was Hillary Clinton who greased the skids so that government contracts could go to business associates and friends.

Is this really in the job description of the secretary of state?

Daily Caller:

Wilson’s requests for help — on behalf of an American engineering contractor he consulted for called Symbion Power — is a recurring theme in each monthly Clinton email dump.

The latest two batches of records are no different.

They show that Wilson, who is perhaps most famous as the husband of ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame, emailed Clinton on Dec. 22, 2009 seeking help for Symbion, which was pursuing a U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) contract for work in Afghanistan.

Wilson said he was frustrated that USAID was “mothballing projects and refusing to consider others because of the perceived dangers” in Afghanistan. “If AID won’t do the job, money should be transferred to the military,” he urged.

And in an Aug. 13, 2010 email released on Dec. 31, Wilson asked for help in gaining access to the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq in order to discuss a contract with U.S. military contractors that was being held up.

“The delays in settling these claims are unwarranted and have had a negative impact on Symbion and obliged us to be out of pocket a considerable sum of money through no fault of our own,” Wilson wrote.

In the case of the Afghanistan project, Clinton vouched for Wilson and Symbion as she forwarded the request to Jack Lew, who served then as deputy secretary of state for management and resources. Wilson’s request may also have been discussed with President Obama, as one email indicates.

“Please check out what Joe is saying here,” Clinton wrote in one Dec. 2009 email to Lew, who is now secretary of the Treasury Department, on his Gmail account. “He is now working for a company that has a good track record building in Iraq and wants to do so in Afghanistan.”

Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was also brought into the loop. In an email to Clinton, Lew and foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, she wrote that she wanted to find out more information about the contracts before reaching out to Wilson.

Lew forwarded the request to his chief of staff, Piper Cambell, and asked to check into Wilson’s request. Campbell emailed back, though the message is completely redacted.

Valerie Plame's cover as a CIA officer was blown in connection with the Scooter Libby affair.  And Wilson claims that the Bush administration wrongly asserted that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy raw uranium from Niger.  The entire incident was dramatized in a hagiographic movie Fair Game, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.

Wilson is apparently a longtime friend of the Clintons, so it's not surprising that he put the squeeze on the secretary of state to help his business friends.  But it's not illegal – unless Clinton was paid in some way for her help.  Wouldn't you love to know what's in that redacted email from Lew's chief of staff?

A revealing look into the use – and misuse – of the office of secretary of state.