WikiLeaks series on deals involving Hillary Clinton campaign
Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of the Clintons and
was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta
also owns the Podesta Group with his brother Tony, a major lobbying firm and is
the Chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based
think tank.
With new emails being released by WikiLeaks on an almost daily
basis, here's a roundup of the most damaging documents to have been
released by the organization to date:
1. MSNBC Producer Gushes Over Hillary Clinton
A leaked email from an
MSNBC producer to the Clinton campaign is showing just how much the media
gushes over Hillary Clinton. In the April 2015 email from a producer on
All In With Chris Hayes to Clinton spokesperson Adrienne Elrod, the producer
goes as far as to call Clinton an "amazing, intelligent woman."
At long last we finally got to see excerpts from Hillary
Clinton's paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and various other banks. The excerpts
were made public by Wikileaks, who just today leaked thousands of emails from
Clinton loyalist and campaign chairman John Podesta.
The speeches had become a campaign issue during the Democratic
primary when Hillary's challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, used the
speeches as evidence of the former Secretary of State's cozy relationship with
Wall Street.
The excerpts were revealed in an email dated
January 25, 2016, with the subject line, “HRC Paid Speeches.” The email came
from Tony Carrk, research director of the Clinton campaign, and was addressed
to Chairman Podesta.
WikiLeaks later released the FULL speeches.
3. Clinton Campaign Illegally
Coordinating With SuperPAC
One email appears to
show evidence that the Clinton campaign is violating campaign finance law.
Specifically, an email from chairman Podesta to Mandy Grunwald,
a Democratic political consultant, appears to show the Clinton campaign
coordinating their efforts with a pro-Clinton SuperPAC.
4. Hillary Clinton Was Provided
Questions Prior To Major Interview
According to a leaked campaign memo,
Hillary Clinton received the exact questions she would be asked ahead of a
major interview she gave to talk show host Steve Harvey earlier this year. The
memo, dated February 17th, is further evidence of the kid-gloves with which the
Democratic nominee has been treated by the media.
5. People in Clinton inner circle
fear Bill’s sex life is a liability.
In a December 2016 email from progressive writer
Brent Budowsky to John Podesta, Budowsky laments the fact that he's been
hearing from the Clinton's inner circle that there are fears that Bill's
sex-life might be a liability on the campaign trail.
6. John Podesta Wished San Bernardino
Shooter Had Been White
In an email to Clinton spokeswoman
Karen Finney, John Podesta was dismayed that the shooter had a
Muslim-sounding name rather than one typically associated with white people.
"Better if a guy named Sayeed Farouk was reporting that a
guy named Christopher Hayes was the shooter," Podesta said to Finney in
the December 3rd email, referring to the MSNBC host.
7. Hillary fears jihadists will enter
the U.S. amongst refugees.
In a private 2013 speech,
Hillary Clinton expressed fears that Jihadists could potentially enter the
United States hidden amongst the Syrian refugee population, a fear she is now
intent on ignoring.
“So I think you’re right to have gone to the places that you
visited because there’s a discussion going on now across the region to try to
see where there might be common ground to deal with the threat posed by
extremism, and particularly with Syria, which has everyone quite worried,
Jordan because it’s on their border and they have hundreds of thousands of
refugees and they can’t possibly vet all those refugees,” Clinton said before
the Jewish United Fund Of Metropolitan Chicago during an October 2013 lunch.
8. Clinton Team Bashes 'Backward'
Catholics
In a 2011 email entitled
"Conservative Catholicism", John Halpin, a senior fellow at the
left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP), and Jennifer Palmieri,
formerly of the CAP and current Director of Communications for the 2016 Hillary
Clinton presidential campaign, and John Podesta trash the Catholic faith and
its adherents. The email, in which traditional Catholic beliefs are derided as
"backwards", drips with contempt for Catholic Americans.
"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," Halpin writes to Podesta. "They must be
attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and
must be totally unaware of Christian democracy."
Palmieri piles onto the Catholic bashing in her response.
"I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable
politically conservative religion," Palmieri writes. "Their rich
friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals."
9. Hillary Staffers Discuss 'Excuse'
For Not Turning Over Emails
In one email released by
WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton staffers appear to be discussing an
"excuse" to not release the full compliment of emails which had been
subpoenaed by the House of Representatives.
The email exchange, which included a number of top Clinton
staffers including Cheryl Mills, Phillipe Reins, and Clinton campaign manager
Robby Mook, took place several weeks before a Clinton staffer used
"Bleachbit" to wipe her private server clean.
10. Hillary Insiders Worried About
Her 'Troublesome' Relationship With Sid Blumenthal
In another email,
John Podesta fields a complaint about some of Hillary Clinton's closest
friends and loyalists including Lanny Davis and her "troublesome"
relationship with former White House advisor Sidney Blumenthal.
Opinion writer Brent Budowsky called Clinton's email
correspondences with Blumenthal, Davis, and Center for American Progress
President Neera Tanden "disquieting" and unbecoming of a Secretary of
State and possible future president.
"It is disquieting that when HRC was secretary of state she
spent a good time of time doing gossip emails with Sid Blumenthal about various
matters, the ubiquitous Lanny Davis shilling for himself in pathetic ways, and
Neera Tanden gossiping about what Soros thinks of Obama," Budowsky wrote
in the January 2016 email. "At least Tanden I regard as a serious person.
Sid and Lanny I do not by standards of a secretary of state or potential
president."
11. Podesta Tells Hillary To Court
'Needy Latinos', Calls Latino Governor A 'Dick'
In an email likely to rankle hispanic
voters, Clinton Campaign chairman John Podesta encourages Hillary to
reach out to the voting block, calling them "needy."
In an email from August of 2015 with the subject line
"Needy Latinos and 1 easy call", Podesta encourages Clinton aid Huma
Abedin to tell Clinton to consider calling former New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson and former Energy Secretary Federico Pena and ask personally for
their endorsement. In the process, Podesta also calls Richardson a
"dick."
12. Clinton Campaign Nervous About
Bill's Paid Wall Street Speeches
Amongst the emails released
by the anti-state-secret organization is one in which campaign staff expresses
concern about the poor optics of a speech to a major Wall Street Bank that Bill
Clinton was set to deliver on the heels of Hillary's announcement that she
would be running for president.
Despite their protests, Hillary is said to have "very
strongly" wanted him to deliver the speech as planned.
163 Democrats Plotted To Create Fake
Trump Craigslist Ads
WikiLeaks document show that
the plot to smear Donald Trump goes back at least several months, when the the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) plotted to create FAKE Craigslist ads with
sexist messages toward women.
In the email, dated May 18th 2016 and entitled "need comms
approval - craigslist job post", Christina Freundlich, a spokeswoman for
the Democratic National Committee, seeks approval for the fake ad from DNC
Communications Directors Louis Miranda and Mark Paustenbach.
