WikiLeaks released a trove of emails
apparently hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman email
account, unleashing thousands of messages that reveal for the first time
excerpts of Clinton’s paid speeches — including those delivered before
Wall Street — that were flagged as problematic or potentially damaging.
The late-Friday, October 7, 2016 release
came almost immediately after a devastating tape emerged of Donald
Trump in 2005 talking about how being “a star” entitled him to make
aggressive sexual advances on women, fueling speculation that WikiLeaks
is trying to tip the balance of the election.
The batch of emails — which Wikileaks
promised is the first of many more to come — provided a glimpse into the
inner workings of the campaign, and offered telling details about
Clinton’s views on trade and the middle class.
In one of the most notable exchanges,
Clinton campaign research director Tony Carrk emails other members of
the team on Jan. 25, 2016 to share excerpts of her paid speeches that
could come back to bite the campaign.
“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,”
Carrk writes.
The first excerpt highlighted — with the
header *CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH* — is from a Goldman
Sachs-Black Rock event in 2014 in which Clinton discusses her distance
from middle-class Americans.
“My father loved to complain about big
business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing.
We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. 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,” she said in the
speech. “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.”
The speech excerpts also delve into her
support for a Canadian-style universal health care system and offer
revealing comments about trade, which could prove controversial after
Clinton dragged her feet in voicing fierce opposition to the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that progressives loathe.
Beyond those excerpts, the emails affirm
the campaign’s reputation for extreme caution, with an eagerness to
proactively influence news coverage. Whether it’s plotting the
candidates’ response to an early attack on influence peddling at the
Clinton Foundation or writing jokes for an Iowa dinner speech, ad hoc
committees — often incorporating advice from Bill Clinton — are shown
agonizing over wording and tone. Under fire, they’re determined “not to
look beleaguered,” as one aide put it.
Clinton’s campaign would not confirm the authenticity of the emails — though it did not explicitly deny it either. Podesta tweeted on Friday evening that he did not “have time to figure out which docs are real and which are faked.”
Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin said in an
email that, “Earlier today the U.S. government removed any reasonable
doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our
election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy.”
He added, “We are not going to confirm
the authenticity of stolen documents released by Julian Assange who has
made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton. Guccifer 2.0 has
already proven the warnings of top national security officials that
documents can be faked as part of a sophisticated Russian misinformation
campaign.”
The Republican National Committee seized
on the leaked excerpts, trying to drive a wedge between Clinton and
former supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had made his calls for her
speech transcripts a centerpiece of his primary challenge.
“With today’s WikiLeaks revelations we
are finding out who Hillary Clinton really is, and it’s not hard to see
why she fought so hard to keep her transcripts of speeches to Wall
Street banks paying her millions of dollars secret,” said RNC Chairman
Reince Preibus in a statement. “The truth that has been exposed here is
that the persona Hillary Clinton has adopted for her campaign is a
complete and utter fraud. How can Bernie Sanders and many like-minded
Democrats continue to support her candidacy in light of these
revelations?”
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon appeared
to criticize the media for digging through the trove on Friday evening.
“Striking how quickly concern abt Russia’s masterminding of illegal
hacks gave way to digging thru fruits of hack. Just like Russia wanted,”
he wrote on Twitter.
Indeed, here are eight more e-mail
exchanges that shed light on the methods and mindset of Clinton’s allies
in Brooklyn and Washington.
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