by Mish
Moreover, leaked emails prove reporters and Wall Street executives are part of that stench.
Here is a synopsis, some even from mainstream media.
On October 9, Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept reported New Email Leak Reveals Clinton Campaign’s Cozy Press Relationship.
Internal strategy documents and emails among Clinton staffers shed light on friendly and highly useful relationships between the campaign and various members of the U.S. media, as well as the campaign’s strategies for manipulating those relationships.
At times, Clinton’s campaign staff not only internally drafted the stories they wanted published but even specified what should be quoted “on background” and what should be described as “on the record.”
One January 2015 strategy document — designed to plant stories on Clinton’s decision-making process about whether to run for president — singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, then of Politico, now covering the election for the New York Times, as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories for them in the past and “never disappointed” them.
Given more than 24 hours to challenge the authenticity of these documents and respond, Merrill [campaign press secretary] did not reply to our emails. Haberman declined to comment.
All presidential campaigns have their favorite reporters, try to plant stories they want published, and attempt in multiple ways to curry favor with journalists. These tactics are certainly not unique to the Clinton campaign (liberals were furious in 2008 when journalists went to John McCain’s Arizona ranch for an off-the-record BBQ). But these rituals and dynamics between political campaigns and the journalists who cover them are typically carried out in the dark, despite how significant they can be. These documents provide a valuable glimpse into that process.
Greenwald provides a list of 38 questionable reporters at ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, Huffington Post, MSNBC, New Yorker, New York Times, People, Politico, Vice, and Vox.
NBC Tweet
A Wikileaks memo detailing “Bill Clinton, Inc.” could haunt Hillary Clinton https://t.co/1qO2CIEzeA pic.twitter.com/ewg6cjn3rF
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 27, 2016
That tweet links to Wikileaks Memo Detailing ‘Bill Clinton, Inc.’ Likely to Haunt Clinton.
Financial Times
The Financial Times reports Trump revels in email leak showing aide hit at Clinton instincts.
The Clinton campaign has blamed Russia for hacking into Mr Podesta’s emails and accused Mr Trump of being too cosy with Moscow.
With less than two weeks until election day, Mrs Clinton did not address the WikiLeaks disclosures. Her campaign stuck to its policy of not commenting on “stolen” emails while noting that Russia has in the past doctored documents.
New York Times
The New York Times reports Donations to Foundation Vexed Hillary Clinton’s Aides, Emails Show
In the years before Hillary Clinton announced she would run again for president, her top aides expressed profound concerns in internal emails about how foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton’s own moneymaking ventures would affect Mrs. Clinton’s political future.
The emails, obtained by hackers and being gradually released by WikiLeaks this month, also are revealing how efforts to minimize potential conflicts at the foundation led to power struggles and infighting among aides and Mrs. Clinton’s family.
One top aide to Mr. Clinton, Douglas J. Band, noted in an email that the former president had received personal income from some foundation donors and “gets many expensive gifts from them.”
Chelsea Clinton accused her father’s aides of taking “significant sums of money from my parents personally,” of “hustling” during foundation events to win clients for their own business, and of even installing spyware on her chief of staff’s computer.
Hillary Clinton, another email showed, had promised to attend a Clinton Foundation gathering in Morocco at the behest of its king, who had pledged $12 million to the charity. Her advisers worried that would look unseemly just as she was beginning her presidential campaign in earnest.
“She created this mess and she knows it,” a close aide, Huma Abedin, wrote of Mrs. Clinton in a January 2015 email.
Citigroup Exec Picks Obama’s Cabinet
The New Republic reports The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton.
The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast.
Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.” Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. “The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.”
The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.
This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted. And according to the Froman/Podestaemails, lists were floating around even before that.
Citi Email to Obama’s Transition Team
John —
Attached are three documents:
— A list of African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by Cabinet/Deputy and Under/Assistant/Deputy Assistant level, plus a list of Native American, Arab/Muslim American and Disabled American candidates. We have much longer lists for most of the groups, and the lists will continue to grow as we reach out further and more openly, but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs. (I have tried to include member of Barack’s campaign and Senate policy staff, as well as participants in the Transition project, as appropriate.)
— While you did not ask for this, I prepared and attached a similar document on women.
— At the risk of being presumptuous, I also scoped out how the Cabinet-level appointments might be put together, probability-weighting the likelihood of appointing a diverse candidate for each position (given one view of the short list) and coming up with a straw man distribution. (Obviously, multiple permutations of this are possible. This was just one example to show how it might pan out.)
Let me know when you’d like to discuss. I am around this morning until about 11:30.
— Mike 212-793-1987
WND discusses 26 WikiLeaks bombshells on Hillary you need to know.
Secret speeches to Wall Street
Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other financial firms, a point of contention during this year’s primary, were the subject of an email to Podesta. Excerpts from some of the speeches had been flagged by Clinton’s research team, including the necessity of having “both a public and a private position” on issues. It was just part of “making sausage” in the political arena, she said, that certain positions on issues needed to be kept hidden from the public.
Some “flags” in Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches were noted in a Jan. 25 email from campaign research director Tony Carrk to top Clinton advisers, including Clinton’s declaration that “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” Countless establishment media outlets parlaying themselves as “fact checkers” tried to downplay this email by saying it was “mostly about trade,” not immigration, as if the words “open borders” were never mentioned. But the email exchange also shows how Hillary’s about-face on the TPP trade deal was mere pandering to Bernie Sanders’ voters and had no basis in reality in terms of how she really feels about trade deals.
In a speech at Goldman-Black Rock on Feb. 4, 2014, Carrk pointed out, Clinton admitted she’s “Kind Of Far Removed” from middle-class struggles due to “The Economic, You Know, Fortunes That My Husband And I Now Enjoy.” Clinton, in other speeches, boasted of her ties to Wall Street, an issue primary opponent Bernie Sanders continually raised. Clinton still has refused to release transcripts of her paid speeches while blasting Donald Trump for not releasing his tax returns.
Working in tandem with ‘friendly’ media
WND reported Tuesday emails showing reporters, editors and contributors not just advocating for Hillary Clinton but apparently colluding with the campaign.
Univision Chairman Haim Saban urged the Clinton campaign to hit Donald Trump harder over immigration.
The New York Times giving the campaign veto power over which interview quotes could be used in a profile of the candidate.
The Boston Globe tried to time a Clinton opinion piece to do the most good in New Hampshire.
CNBC’s John Harwood urged Clinton campaign chairman Podesta to watch out for then-GOP candidate Dr. Ben Carson.
Democratic National Committee official and CNN contributor Donna Brazile apparently tipped off the Clinton campaign to a potentially difficult CNN town-hall question on capital punishment during the Democratic Party primary season. Brazile adamantly denies it.
Mountains of Sleaze
There are mountains of this kind of sleaze. This post would be several miles long if I included everything.
Wall Street for Hillary
