WikiLeaks says it has some 50,000 Hillary Clinton campaign emails, and on Fri. Oct. 7, it began leaking the personal emails Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The group said it would release emails every day until Election Day. Podesta acknowledged his emails were hacked, but has not verify the authenticity of the emails. He warned that messages may have been altered or edited to inflict political damage but has not pointed to any specific case of this.
It wasn’t immediately clear who hacked Podesta’s emails, though U.S. intelligence officials last week blamed the Russian government for a series of breaches intended to influence the presidential election, and the FBI is investigating the breach. CBS News’ Nancy Cordes reported that Podesta on Tuesday went step-by-step through all the contact Donald Trump and his campaign aides have had with Russian actors or with Wikileaks.
Through its Twitter account, the Russian Embassy in Washington has denied any role in the cyberattacks, suggesting U.S. officials are just “whipping up” anti-Russia hysteria.
The messages stolen from Podesta’s account describe how Clinton’s closest advisers considered responding to key events during the campaign, including the discovery of her email server and her congressional testimony over the deadly 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, as well as excerpts of Clinton’s paid Wall Street speeches. The batches have also included emails from then-DNC vice chairwoman Donna Brazile which seem to show a preference for Clinton over other Democratic candidates. Here are the highlights of the emails, with the most recent leaked email highlights at the top.
Sun. Oct. 16 email release
WikiLeaks continued Sunday with its daily dump of emails from the hacked personal account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
In its massive Sunday release, several emails showcased the inner workings of the campaign, including exchanges that discussed how the campaign should handle foreign government lobbyists’ donations, how Clinton could better handle apologizing for her use of a private email server, and how the campaign should handle issues of the candidate’s health records and taxes.
Here are some of the highlights:
April 2015: Clinton campaign discusses what to do with foreign government lobbyist donations
Clinton National Finance Director Dennis Cheng wrote in April that the campaign needed to make a policy decision on whether to allow those lobbying on behalf of foreign governments to raise money for the Clinton campaign. After some debate, campaign manager Robby Mook responded that he was “OK just taking the money and dealing with any attacks.” Jennifer Palmieri agreed: “Take the money!!”
A week later, however, it became apparent that that decision had not been run by Hillary Clinton. Huma Abedin wrote to Mook to say that Clinton had read in the paper that the campaign would be taking FARA money, and she wanted to discuss who the donors were and “weigh in,” according to Abedin.
August 2015: Tanden fears Clinton’s inability to show remorse for email server will become “a character problem”
Neera Tanden wrote to Podesta saying she fears that Clinton’s inability to do a national interview and communicate genuine remorse for having a private email server is becoming a character problem. “I see no downside in her actually just saying, look, I’m sorry. I think it will take so much air out of this,” Tanden wrote.
Clinton, Tanden said, “always sees herself bending to ‘their’ will when she hands over information….But the way she has to bend here is in the remorse. Not the ‘if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t do it.’ A real feeling of — this decision I made created a mess and I’m sorry I did that.”
Tanden continued, “No one things she doesn’t have the judgment to be president — she’s not reaffirming a negative characteristic in saying sorry. She needs to do that. I see no way of moving on until October otherwise.”
In this email, Tanden was talking about October 2015. it was not until July 2016 that the FBI announced it would not recommend charges against Clinton, a conclusion that is still being questioned by House Republicans, in particular.
March 2015: Mook on taxes and Clinton’s health:
Robby Mook asked Podesta if he had ever talked to Clinton about issues surrounding her health or her taxes. “I’m know both are hyper sensitive but I wonder if both are better dealt with very early so we control them–rather than responding to calls for transparency. What do you think?” Mook wrote.
Sat. Oct. 15 email release
WikiLeaks released what they claim were the transcripts from Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches in 2013. This batch of emails also included a look at an email about Juanita Broaddrick, who accused former President Bill Clinton of raping her in the late 1970s.
January 2016: Transcripts of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs paid speeches
In one email from earlier this year, Podesta received three transcripts for speeches to Goldman Sachs that Clinton had given in 2013.
Some of the more notable excerpts are below:
- Ironically, Clinton once told an audience at Goldman Sachs: “You know, I would like to see more successful business people run for office. I really would like to see that because I do think, you know, you don’t have to have 30 billion, but you have a certain level of freedom. And there’s that memorable phrase from a former member of the Senate: You can be maybe rented but never bought. And I think it’s important to have people with those experiences.”
- Clinton joked that “this is all off the record, right?” before launching into a discussion about WikiLeaks: “So, all right. This is all off the record, right? You’re not telling your spouses if they’re not here…Okay. I was Secretary of State when WikiLeaks happened. You remember that whole debacle. So out come hundreds of thousands of documents. And I have to go on an apology tour. And I had a jacket made like a rock star tour. The Clinton Apology Tour. I had to go and apologize to anybody who was in any way characterized in any of the cables in any way that might be considered less than flattering. And it was painful.”
- Clinton weighed in on Syria and how a no-fly zone would “kill a lot of Syrians”: “My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene. We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else… But the idea that we would have like a no fly zone — Syria, of course, did have when it started the fourth biggest army in the world. It had very sophisticated air defense systems. They’re getting more sophisticated thanks to Russian imports. To have a no fly zone you have to takeout all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”
January 2016: David Kendall gives Podesta a history of Juanita Broaddrick’s allegations
A January 2016 email from Clinton’s personal lawyer, David Kendall, to Podesta gave a breakdown of the history of allegations made by Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Mr. Clinton of raping her in the late 1970s.
Broaddrick was among the three past accusers of the former president who attended last week’s debate in St. Louis at the invitation of Trump. Mr. Clinton has denied the rape accusation made by Broaddrick, which was never adjudicated by a criminal court.
The documents in the WikiLeaks release include the affidavit that Broaddrick signed saying that Mr. Clinton did not assault her and the independent counsel’s history of the Paula Jones case in which Broaddrick later received immunity from any prosecution for perjury if she changed her story.
“Voila! She did, disavowing her sworn affidavit and sworn deposition testimony,” Kendall wrote in the email to Podesta. He concluded, “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can provide about this slimefest.”
Fri. Oct. 14 email release
Emails leaked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s private email account Friday by WikiLeaks addressed using executive privilege to keep the emails between Hillary Clinton and President Obama from being released, a 2008 survey testing reaction to then-Sen. Obama’s Muslim father and use of cocaine, and a suggestion from former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholme on how to take Clinton out of the “bubble.”
March 2015: Podesta wrote to Cheryl Mills about withholding emails between Clinton and Obama
Six days before Hillary Clinton spoke to reporters at the United Nations about her private email server, Podesta wrote to Cheryl Mills, “Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That’s the heart of his exec privilege. We could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will.”
In September, Politico reported that the State Department would not release emails exchanged between Clinton and Obama to the public, citing the “presidential communications privilege,” which is another name for the executive privilege. Claiming the privilege enables the president to withhold certain information that has been requested by other branches of government or by the public. This means that the emails the two wrote to each other won’t be released until 5 to 12 years after the end of the Obama administration, as dictated by the Presidential Records Act.
January 2008: Clinton pollster proposed message testing lines on Obama–including reference to his Muslim father, past cocaine use
An email referring to “McCain Survey-3” from Greenberg research listed a number of survey questions with “negative facts” about Clinton’s primary opponent, then-Sen. Obama. Kristi Fuksa, of Greenberg Research, sent the email to Democratic operatives including Podesta, Paul Begala, Tara McGuinness and Susan McCue
The statements floated included subjects like his upbringing among Muslims, his father’s Muslim faith, his referring to past cocaine use as “a little blow” — here’s the survey:
* 1 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) was the only candidate at a recent event not to cover his heart during the national anthem and he has stopped wearing an American flag pin.
* 2 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) benefited from a land deal from a contributor who has been indicted for corruption.
* 3 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) would personally negotiate with the leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions.
* 4 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted against allowing people to use handguns to defend themselves against intruders.
* 5 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) plans to raise taxes by 180 (one hundred and eighty) billion dollars a year to pay for his government-run health care plan
* 6 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted repeatedly against emergency funding bills for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* 7 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh)‘s father was a Muslim and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world’s most populous Islamic country.
* 8 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) is ranked as one of the ten most liberal members of the Senate because of his support of issues like gay adoption.
* 9 (Other)
* 10 (All)
* 11 (None)
* 12 (Don’t know/refused)
* 13 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive the procedure.
* 14 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) supports giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants
* 15 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh) described his former use of cocaine as using “a little blow.”
Begala told the Washington Post that the survey was named for John McCain because “it was designed to test attacks that might come in the general election.” He also pointed out that “every campaign and every PAC tests potential negatives against the candidate they support…that’s all it was.”
July 2015: Jennifer Granholm’s suggestion on how to get Clinton out of the “bubble”
The former Michigan governor suggested Clinton could dispense with the idea that she’s “out of touch” by doing “work days,” in which she’d pick “8 occupations that she is willing to spend one day working at. She humbles herself, but gives dignity to the workers whose salaries she wants to raise.” Some of Granholm’s suggestions included working as a janitor in a school cafeteria, at a daycare center, making beds in a hotel, bussing tables at Denny’s or working “behind the counter at McDonalds or Chipotle’s!”
Thurs. Oct.13 email release
June 2015: Mook’s response to a de Blasio tweet praising Sanders
After New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted, “I’ve always liked what i heard from Bernie Sanders,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook had a response: “Wow. What a terrorist.”
De Blasio withheld his endorsement of Clinton for months, though he’d known both Clintons for years. De Blasio was Clinton’s campaign manager for her 2000 senate campaign, served in Bill Clinton’s administration, and in fact it was Bill Clinton who swore de Blasio into office as mayor.
De Blasio ended up waiting until October 2015 to announce his endorsement of Clinton. He suggested that his delay was a result of the fact that Clinton didn’t immediately roll out her entire platform when she launched her campaign in April 2015.
December 2015: Clinton’s “generally sloppy part” of interview with Charlie Rose
Clinton’s communications team discussed the “generally sloppy part of the interview” with Charlie Rose, in which Clinton fudged her position on taxes.
Podesta gave a crisp critique of the interview in the email thread:
In a generally sloppy part of the interview when he turned to taxes, I think she raised three questions: 1) a kind of weird denial that she’s cutting middle class taxes, 2) strumming around in the payroll tax and saying it’s not that big a deal, and 3) opening the door to a repatriation holiday, although generally being against it. I think we need to be ready for all, but the payroll tax answer seems the most problematic if the spin is that the payroll tax isn’t big deal to most people as opposed to a small cut in the payroll tax wouldn’t be smart.
The staff agreed Clinton needed better preparation, especially for the middle class tax cuts question, noting “Charlie even tried to help her on that answer.”
Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan admitted that she wasn’t ready for those questions — because the interview went on for much longer than her communications team expected. He said, “…in this case we didn’t do any prep for economic policy q’s, in part because we didn’t expect the interview to go 55 mins!”
January 2016: Sid Blumenthal – “lost in his own web of conspiracies”
Podesta said of Clinton friend Sid Blumenthal, “Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies. I pay zero attention to what he says.”
November 2014: Future Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook wants Illinois primary date moved
Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to move the Illinois presidential primary to a later date, saying a contest held after the Super Tuesday primaries might stop momentum for a moderate Republican candidate and emphasizing that Clinton and her husband “won’t forget” a political favor, emails made public on Thursday show.
A November 2014 email hacked from the accounts of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was among nearly 2,000 new emails published by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The email, from Clinton’s future campaign manager Robby Mook to Podesta, said Obama administration officials should use their connections in the president’s home state to try to push back the March 15 Illinois primary by at least a month.
“The overall goal is to move the IL primary out of mid-March, where they are currently a lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate after the mostly southern Super Tuesday,” Mook wrote. “IL was a key early win for (GOP presidential candidate Mitt) Romney” in 2012.
While the request would come from Obama, the president and former Illinois senator, “the key point is that this is not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask,” Mook said.
“The Clintons won’t forget what their friends have done for them,” he added. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, famously gave special attention to allies considered “friends of Bill.”
Mook suggested that Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff and longtime Illinois power broker, should reach out to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan to make the request. He made it clear it would be a tough sell because Madigan and other Illinois Democrats “feel forgotten and neglected by POTUS,” a reference to Obama.
Daley, whose father and brother were both Chicago mayors, told The Associated Press that he called Madigan as requested, but warned Clinton’s team that moving the primary was unlikely because of a short time-frame.
“I made the call and talked to Mike and he listened and understood the reasoning,” Daley said. “But my own judgment was the likelihood that either side would want a primary later in the legislative session was going to be slim to none.”
The Illinois legislature moved up the 2008 primary to benefit its favorite son, then-Sen. Barack Obama, in his bid for the White House. The primary was held in early February that year to give Illinois more influence, but then moved back to its traditional date in mid-March.
This year the primary was held as scheduled on March 15. Clinton won the Democratic primary, while Donald Trump won the Republican contest.
Wednesday, Oct. 12 email release:
The emails from Podesta’s personal gmail account reveal the ego-stroking and horse-trading involved in courting top supporters.
August 2015, from Podesta to Clinton – convincing Pena and Richardson to endorse
One August 2015 email with the subject line “Needy Latinos and 1 easy call,” Podesta urged Clinton to call former Energy Secretary Fedrico Pena, who is “close to committing but carrying some baggage,” and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, “notwithstanding the fact that he can be a d***.”
“I had heard that you were upset that I encouraged a call between WJC and Richardson to bury the hatchet,” Podesta wrote to Clinton, referring to the former president by his initials.
He added that “not withstanding the fact that [Richardson] can be a dick, it was worth getting him in a good place.”
“He’s on Meet the Press on Sunday. Probably worth a quick call to ask him to stay stout and publicly endorse, but if it’s too galling, don’t bother,” Podesta wrote.
An email from an earlier batch included one from Richardson who wanted a call from Clinton before announcing his endorsement of her on ABC’s “This Week.”
December 2013: Podesta – David Plouffe exchange on Clinton planning for 2016 campaign
Another exchange with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe revealed Clinton was laying the groundwork for a possible run far earlier than previously known. In December of 2013, Plouffe agreed to “enlist” a “small number” of people to draw up a battle plan, but promised his helpers would have “no knowledge of who the project is for of course.”
Clinton advisor Cheryl Mills was equally secretive, telling Plouffe, “I have shared that we met with (Hillary Clinton) and (John Podesta); and with no others.”
April 2011: Jennifer Palmieri on Catholics
In an email from 2011 from John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, derided Catholic conservatives in an email to Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri, now the Clinton campaign’s communications director.
“Ken Auletta’s latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic,” Halpin wrote. “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”
Palmieri responded, “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.”
The Trump campaign seized on this revelation, which Gov. Mike Pence brought up in an address to students at Liberty University, which claims to be the largest evangelical Christian university in the world.
“We learned from another email release that a campaign official in [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign, back in 2011, actually said that conservatives chose the Catholic faith because they ‘think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion,’” Pence said. “And she added in her email, their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals… It’s extraordinary.”
May 2015: Huma Abedin asks if Clinton can get away with not answering press questions until the fall
In another email exchange from May 2015 between Podesta, adviser Huma Abedin and Palmieri, Abedin said she had just spoken with Clinton, and they wanted to rethink their press strategy after the launch of the campaign.
“Can we survive not answering questions from press at message events,” Abedin wondered, proposing “in the fall, starting to do avails at message events, interviews and q and a with press but having had a series of policy proposals already announced and reported on that she could point to.”
Podesta rejected this idea. “If she thinks we can get to Labor Day without taking press questions, I think that’s suicidal,” he wrote. “We have to find some mechanism to let the stream out of the pressure cooker.”
Clinton held her first press conference in 2016 on Sept. 8. Since she inaugurarated her general election plane, she has begun talking with the press more regularly.
January 2016: Donna Brazile promises to “be your biggest surrogate” before primaries begin
And around the new year, there was an exchange with Donna Brazile in which Podesta wrote to Brazile, “Wishing you a happy New Year. 2015 was challenging, but we ended in a good place thanks to your help and support.”
“As soon as the nomination is wrapped up, I will be your biggest surrogate,” Brazile promised, seeming to forecast a Clinton victory. Brazile at the time was a vice chairwoman at the DNC, and this exchange took place before the first ballots had been cast in any of the presidential primaries.
Party rules demand officers of the DNC remain neutral during the primaries, and the exchange here suggests Brazile had a favorable disposition toward Clinton. In Tuesday’s WikiLeaks email release, an email from Brazile to Podesta seemed to suggest she had received a town hall debate question in advance and was sharing it with Clinton.
August 2015: Podesta weighs in on killer of Cecil the Lion
In an August 2015 email from Podesta to a Barry Bearak, a journalist at The New York Times, Podesta said that Bearak should write an op-ed calling for Cecil the lion’s “killer’s extradition.”
“What an a**h***,” Podesta wrote to Bearak. “Missed you at the reunion.”
Cecil, a well-known lion living in Hwange Game Reserve in Zimbabwe had been lured out of a national park so that an American big game hunter could track and kill him.
Tuesday, Oct. 11 email release:
Hacked emails show that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was slow to grasp the seriousness of the controversy over her use of a homebrew email server and believed it might blow over after one weekend.
Two days after The Associated Press was first to report in March 2015 that Clinton had been running a private server in her home in New York to send and receive messages when she was secretary of state, her advisers were shaping their strategy to respond to the revelation.
March 2015: Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill optimistic that private server issue will be short-lived
Among the emails made public Tuesday by WikiLeaks was one from Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill, who optimistically suggested that the issue might quickly blow over.
“Goal would be to cauterize this just enough so it plays out over the weekend and dies in the short term,” Merrill wrote on March 6, 2015.
It did not, and became the leading example of Clinton’s penchant for secrecy, which has persisted as a theme among her campaign critics and rivals throughout her election season. Clinton did not publicly confirm or discuss her use of the email server until March 10 in a speech at the United Nations, nearly one week after AP revealed the server’s existence.
March 2016: Donna Brazile – “From time to time I get the questions in advance”
In an email from mid-March just before a town hall hosted by CNN, Donna Brazile, then vice chair at the DNC, as well as a CNN contributor wrote to Palmieri, “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”
“Here’s one that worries me about HRC,” Brazile wrote, referring to Clinton, and she sent this question:
“DEATH PENALTY 19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That’s 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?”
Palmieri responded, “Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it.”
As it turned out, Clinton was asked about the death penalty, but the phrasing of the question was different. Brazile and CNN have denied that she has ever had any of the questions in advance.
And some of the emails dealt with campaign messaging and strategy — including the phrase “everyday Americans,” which Clinton and her campaign used frequently in the first few months of her candidacy.
May 2015: Brian Fallon says “DOJ folks” told him a court hearing in the Clinton State Department email case was planned soon
Months after Merrill’s message, the campaign was still preoccupied with emails. In May 2015, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon alerted other staffers that the Justice Department was proposing to publish Clinton’s work-related emails by January in response to requests by news organizations. Fallon, a former Justice Department spokesman, wrote that unspecified “DOJ folks” told him there was a court hearing planned soon in the case. The name and email address of the person who shared the information with Fallon had been deleted.
Donald Trump called Fallon’s email “unbelievable,” and his supporters said it showed collusion between the Obama administration and Clinton’s campaign.
But the dates of court hearings would have been publicly posted in advance on the court’s docket.
Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, a veteran of Clinton’s 2008 campaign, at one point asked Podesta in an email: “Why doesn’t she just turn the server over to a third party at this point?”
March 2015: Nick Merrill suggests Larry Wilmore and Bill Clinton joke about Hillary Clinton emails
In emails from March 2015, Merrill suggested a strategy – ultimately nixed by Clinton herself – of having comedian Larry Wilmore and Bill Clinton joke during an event for the Clinton Global Initiative charity in Coral Gables, Florida, before having Clinton join them on stage.
Merrill laid out the scenario in emails to Podesta and other aides: “Wilmore could sit down with WJC and Chelsea and say something like ‘Thanks for having me here, it’s a pleasure. And I should tell you, I just emailed HRC (I hear she’s a big emailer), and asked if she’d join as well. (Laughter).’” He added that Hillary Clinton could then walk out “to applause.”
“It would be just light-hearted enough while giving her the opportunity to address this seriously, be a little conciliatory as discussed, and then get back to a discussion about CGI etc.,” Merrill wrote in the email.
In the end, Hillary Clinton’s team drafted talking points Clinton used at the news conference at the United Nations.
Clinton said she “fully complied with every rule that I was governed by” and that “there is no classified material” among her work-related emails.
Both of those statements were later proved false.
The State Department’s internal watchdog concluded in an audit released that Clinton ignored clear written guidance that her email setup broke federal record-keeping rules and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. The FBI’s recently closed investigation concluded that more than 100 emails exchanged through Clinton’s private server contained information that was later determined to be classified.
As the email controversy escalated in the summer of 2015, Clinton herself seemed slow to grasp the continuing political damage. Communications director Jennifer Palmieri in August expressed concerns that Clinton “wasn’t in the same place” on the issue as some on her campaign staff.
At the time, the political aides were working out details of revealing that Clinton had directed her staff to hand over her server and a thumb drive with copies of her emails to the Justice Department. Palmieri was writing other campaign aides to arrange for a Univision reporter to ask “a few questions on emails” during an interview that would otherwise focus on college affordability.
“As you all know, I had hoped that we could use the ‘server moment’ as an opportunity for her to be viewed as having take a big step to deal with the email problem that would best position us for what is ahead,” Palmieri wrote. “It is clear that she is not in same place.”
October 2015: speechwriter Dan Schwerin vets Clinton’s Benghazi statement
Dan Schwerin circulated among top Clinton advisers a draft of her opening statement to the House Select Committee on Benghazi, to be delivered the following week.
The draft itself wasn’t attached in the emails published Tuesday, but other messages showed how it was shaped, including a section referring to Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack.
“We might consider softening the ‘Chris did not believe retreat was an option – and neither do I’ line,” wrote Katherine Turner, a law partner of Clinton’s personal attorney David Kendall. “I don’t think we want to suggest that there was a commitment to be there at any and all costs.”
October 2015: Podesta floats another joke about Trump and Trey Gowdy
Following Clinton’s tense Oct. 22 testimony, Podesta proposed in an email that she could publicly joke, “I used to be obsessed with Donald Trump’s hair, that was until I got to spend 11 hours staring at the top of Trey Gowdy’s head,” a reference to the slicked-back white coif of the South Carolina Republican who chairs the committee.
Other Clinton aides shot down the idea.
“I love the joke too but I think HRC should stay above the committee,” adviser Jake Sullivan replied, “and especially above personal insults about it. She’s got every inch of the high ground right now.”
Palmieri replied: “Wow. You people are a bunch of ninnies.”
Speechwriter Dan Schwerin had sent out a draft of a speech he wrote for Clinton for an upcoming event in New Hampshire. After a few exchanges, Podesta recommended that the phrase “everyday Americans” get added in, even though he said Clinton doesn’t like using it.
“I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use it once the first time she says I’m running for president because you and everyday Americans need a champion,” Podesta said. “I think if she doesn’t say it once, people will notice and say we false started in Iowa.”
Mon. Oct. 10 email release
Emails leaked Monday show consternation among those closest to Hillary Clinton about how Bill Clinton’s business dealings might damage his reputation and potentially affect her presidential hopes.
The emails, posted Monday by WikiLeaks also give insight into tension and turmoil within the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was serving as secretary of state. The chief operating officer of the family charity was reported to be threatening to commit suicide over the stress.
The emails that circulated among Podesta, Chelsea Clinton and former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band detail internal tensions that simmered inside the Clinton Foundation and appear to have played a role in Band’s departure from the family charity.
Internal concerns among Clinton family intimates about Band and the private corporate advisory firm he co-founded, Teneo Holdings, have been previously detailed in several media accounts. But the new emails provide raw glimpses of an apparent power struggle between the Clintons’ daughter and Band, who worked closely for Bill Clinton for more than a decade after the end of the Clinton administration.
December 2011: Chelsea Clinton says she’s concerned about Teneo (global consulting firm founded by former Clinton adviser Doug Band)
In an email exchange from December 2011, Chelsea Clinton tells Podesta and others – including Clinton adviser and current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe – that she’s increasingly concerned about Teneo.
The email includes a forwarded news article that alleges that Bill Clinton had collected $50,000 a month through Teneo from MF Global, the commodities brokerage formerly run by former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, while MF Global was preparing to file for bankruptcy.
Chelsea Clinton told Podesta and others that two people separately came up to her at a London event for the Clinton Foundation to raise concerns that someone representing Teneo clients had been calling members of the British Parliament “on behalf of President Clinton” without her father’s knowledge. Chelsea Clinton said the calls had people in London “making comparisons” between the “profit motivations” of the former president and former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“Which would horrify my father,” Chelsea Clinton wrote.
November 2011: Doug Band (founder of Teneo, former adviser to Bill Clinton): Chelsea Clinton “acting like a spoiled brat kid”
Band wrote in an email that Chelsea Clinton seemed more concerned about critical news coverage about MF Global, a derivatives broker, and Band’s advisory firm, Teneo, than published reports about Bill Clinton’s infidelity.
“I realize it is difficult to confront and reason with her but this could go (too) far and then we all will have a real serious set of other problems,” Band vented in an exchange sent to Podesta. “I don’t deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect. … She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.”
The emails reflect the ascendance of Chelsea Clinton – as early as 2011 – inside the family charity. The younger Clinton was recently was anointed as the Clinton Foundation’s future leader if her mother wins the presidency next month. Bill Clinton announced in August that he planned to step down from the charity’s board if his wife becomes president. Chelsea Clinton will remain on the organization’s board.
Bill Clinton explained in a letter to supporters in August that he would resign and stop raising funds for the charity to eliminate “legitimate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.”
Calls seeking comment from the Clinton Foundation and from Teneo, where Band works, received no response Monday.
December 2011: Band blames Bill and Chelsea Clinton for driving Clinton Foundation COO Laura Graham “to the edge”
Also in December 2011, Clinton Foundation chief operating officer Laura Graham contacted Band to complain that stress she blamed on the former president and Chelsea Clinton was causing her to consider suicide.
Band wrote that when Graham called him, she was in her car parked near the water with her foot on the gas pedal. He said he dissuaded her from hurting herself.
“She called me to tell me the stress of all of this office crap with wjc and cvc as well as that of her family had driven her to the edge and she couldn’t take it anymore,” Band wrote in an email to Podesta and Cheryl Mills, then Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff.
Graham later departed the Clinton Foundation, taking a new job with the Empire State Development Corporation. Phone messages left for Graham on Monday received no response.
Friday, Oct. 7 Podesta email release
Potentially problematic excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s paid Wall Street speecheswere flagged for her campaign in an email that was sent to chairman John Podesta and other senior staff this past January.
The email was released Friday by Wikileaks, part of a batch of what it says were 2,060 emails hacked from an account belonging to Podesta. The Clinton campaign has not confirmed the authenticity of the emails.
January 2016: Hillary Clinton’s paid Wall Street speeches – excerpts
“Team, attached are the flags from HRC’s paid speeches we have from HWA. I put some highlights below. There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with policy,” a staffer wrote on January 25, 2016.
Harry Walker Agency is the speaker’s bureau that arranged Clinton’s lucrative speech circuit after she left the State Department, which included $3 million dollars from speeches to banks and financial firms — $675,000 came from three speeches from Goldman Sachs. The 25 flagged excerpts likely point to why Clinton and her campaign have refused to release the transcripts, despite coming under fire from Senator Bernie Sanders during the primary.
Less than two weeks after the email was sent, on February 4, Clinton was asked during a debate whether she’d release the transcripts of all her paid speeches and she said, “I will look into it. I don’t know the status, but I will certainly look into it.”
When asked again during an April 4 debate, Clinton said she would release them if Sanders and Donald Trump released their tax returns. “You know, let’s set the same standard for everybody,” Clinton said. “When everybody does it, OK, I will do it, but let’s set and expect the same standard on tax returns.”
The first flagged email has the subject line “Clinton Admits She Is Out of Touch.” In a February 4, 2014 speech to what was referred to as “Goldman-Black Rock”, Clinton said “And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged…We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn’t believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven’t forgotten it.”
Another flag came from a speech to the National Multi-Housing Council on April 24, 2013: “Clinton Says You Need to Have a Private and Public Position on Policy.”
“I mean, politics is like sausage being made,” she said in the speech according to the excerpt. “It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”
In an October 23, 2013 speech to the Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, “Clinton Talks About Holding Wall Street Accountable Only for Political Reasons.”
Clinton said she started traveling in February of 2009 “so people could, you know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere. Now, that’s an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom. And I think that there’s a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?”
Other excerpts from the internal email are flagged as “CLINTON SUGGESTS WALL STREET INSIDERS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED TO FIX WALL STREET, *CLINTON ADMITS NEEDING WALL STREET FUNDING”, “CLINTON TOUTS HER RELATIONSHIP TO WALL STREET AS A SENATOR”, “CLINTON TALKS ABOUT THE CHALLENGES RUNNING FOR OFFICE”, “CLINTON IS AWARE OF SECURITY CONCERNS AROUND BLACKBERRIES”, “CLINTON REMARKS ARE PRO KEYSTONE AND PRO TRADE”, “CLINTON IS MORE FAVORABLE TO CANADIAN HEALTH CARE AND SINGLE PAYER”
A Clinton campaign official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.