WikiLeaks released the third installment of its cache of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s hacked emails early Tuesday, revealing the inner workings of the Clinton camp’s efforts to spin news items and influence reporting; their strategies to take down the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and the often cozy relationship between Podesta and corporate lobbyists.
For instance, one email featured Gordon Giffin, a lobbyist for TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, asking Podesta personally to secure a seat for him at the White House state dinner with Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Giffin is a [so-called] ‘Hillblazer’ who has contributed or raised at least $100,000 for Clinton and her joint funds with the Democratic Party,” Politico observed.
Another exchange shows top aides struggling to spin contentious moments, including a statement Clinton made last February about her vote for a 2001 bankruptcy bill that favored credit card companies. Clinton said she was pressured to vote for the legislation by women’s groups.
“She said women groups [sic] were all pressuring her to vote for it. Evidence does not support that statement,” Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Ann O’Leary wrote.
Other notable exchanges reveal the Clinton campaign’s attack lines on Sanders’ presidential run: one shows Clinton aides soliciting an op-ed from current transition team head (and former Interior Secretary) Ken Salazar that slams Sanders’ record on immigration, which Salazar readily provided.
Another, titled “Sanders hits,” features a list of points of attack against the Vermont senator. It includes such items as Sanders’ record on gay marriage and gun rights, which became popular lines of attack from the Clinton camp during the close Democratic primary contest.
And many emails involving journalists, such as one from Patrick Healy of the New York Times, often reveal the campaign’s forthright efforts to manipulate media coverage of Clinton—a tactic that prior email dumps have also shown, as The Intercept reported.
Occasionally, the exchanges also reveal Clinton aides expressing views that oppose the candidate’s own: one email from Podesta shows him urging another Clinton staffer to “drop the gmo’s [sic]” when the aide tells Podesta she is suffering from a bad migraine. Clinton supports GMO crops and the biotech industry.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks and others continued to sift through the thousands of emails previously published by the group and highlight particularly notable ones:
The emails also reveal prominent Clinton supporters outside of the campaign were frightened by the unexpected success of Sanders’ campaign and often offered unsolicited advice on how to better appeal to voters. “A good amount of exposure of Hillary holding, feeding and playing with her adorable grandchild would greatly help the public understand her,” wrote longtime Clinton ally Andy Manatos last fall.
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And other missives illustrate that the Clinton campaign was at times pressured to adopt more progressive views. For example, The Hill columnist Brent Budowsky argued to Podesta in March that Clinton should attempt to dovetail with Sanders’ policy recommendations, rather than attack the progressive senator, if Clinton hoped to win Sanders’ supporters’ votes in the future. Budowsky wrote:
In response to the WikiLeaks trove, Clinton surrogates and supporters have said that the leaks were orchestrated by Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, despite no evidence to support that claim. “It is absolutely disgraceful that the Trump campaign is cheering on a release today engineered by Vladimir Putin to interfere in this election,” Clinton campaign spokesman Glen Caplin said Monday in a statement.
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