Yet another installment of hacked emails from a top aide to Hillary Clinton was released on the internet Monday morning, as Wikileaks teased critics of Clinton by announcing that it was ready to move into a new phase of its effort to undermine the Democratic nominee for President.
The release of the 24th bundle of emails from John Podesta did not immediately showcase new bombshells from Wikileaks, as a review showed what's become a normal peek behind the curtain of the work of top Clinton aides, as they deal with her campaign, questions about her email server, and the Clinton Foundation.
One item out today on the Clinton Foundation is an email from 2012, detailing a new "Office of the President" that will be created for Bill Clinton.
"The Office of President Clinton will be a separate entity from the non-profits and will also manage all of his official/Office of Former President, for-profit, political and personal endeavors," wrote Laura Graham, the CEO of the Clinton Foundation.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Here's some of what Wikileaks has made public:
1. Clinton Foundation & Wikileaks. Maybe the most damaging information to come out of the Podesta email leaks have been messages dealing with the Clinton Foundation, and money going especially to former President Bill Clinton. "WikiLeaks Shows Foundation Donors, Personal Cash Overlap," read the headline on NPR over the weekend, as this part of Wikileaks has drawn the most attention from the news media. Also involved as a player in some of these links is top Clinton aide Huma Abedin; that's stoked even more interest from Republican critics of Clinton.
2. Wikileaks Trick or Treat? Late on Sunday night, Wikileaks put out a note on Twitter that it was ready for "phase 3" of its "US election coverage next week." In recent months, Wikileaks has transformed itself from an internet group that's leaking hacked materials to a group that's fully involved in the campaign effort against Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks has also more openly targeted Google for its support of Clinton. Will there be something new and dramatic that gets released over the next week, or is this just Wikileaks trying to inject some drama before Election Day? Stay tuned.
3. Where are the new Clinton emails? Wikileaks has talked big at times about new emails involving Hillary Clinton, but has yet to deliver. I have readers and listeners message me all the time saying, "Just watch - these new emails will get Clinton." First they were going to be dropped during the debates, then on Clinton's birthday last week. Now people tell me it's November 1 when Wikileaks will reveal the 33,000 emails that Clinton deleted from her home email server. Or maybe there is another option - that Wikileaks is bluffing? It's being noticed on the web:
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
4. Using leaks to their advantage. One of the newly released emails on Monday was referenced before, but now we see it for the first time - the Clinton campaign trying to give the news media a head fake on when Hillary Clinton would actually announce a run for President. In an email, Robby Mook tells John Podesta, "I think we should get a credible leak out that we're announcing on the 20th. As a decoy." It's a reminder that sometimes you are given leaks as a reporter that seem like real news, but maybe things are being orchestrated behind the scenes for something else. It's a reminder for reporters that everyone spins in D.C. Everyone.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
5. The struggle over Clinton's emails. Every Wikileaks release pulls back a little more of the curtain on how Team Clinton tried to deal with stories in the press about her emails from her time as Secretary of State. On the special Benghazi committee, long time aides Jim Kennedy and Cheryl Mills ridicule the panel in an email, while at the same time trying to deal with the request for documents - "all their obsessive/compulsive email questions should be answered in one paragraph," Kennedy wrote in April 2015. In another email chain, Clinton staffers get aggravated with Mike Schmidt of the New York Times over his questions on the use of private email by Clinton aides at the State Department.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
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