Leaked emails reveal Hillary Clinton’s life of deceit
October 15, 2016 | 4:10pm
Among
the many telling kernels of truth dappling the spoor of the Hillary
Clinton campaign’s internal emails released by WikiLeaks this past week,
this one immediately leaped out:
“Politics
is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that
way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s
watching . . . then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So,
you need both a public and a private position.”
The
sausage maker was Clinton, giving one of her $225,000 speeches that
she’s so long sought to conceal from the public, in this instance to the
National Multi-Housing Council in April 2013. It came at a time when
the just-retired secretary of state was coyly gearing up for a White
House run, little tin cup at the ready, raking in nearly a million
dollars that month alone.
Her public career has been based on showing one face to her gullible supporters and another, more ruthless one to allies and adversaries behind closed doors.
When her ode to pragmatic two-facedness was called out by Donald Trump at last week’s debate, she lamely blamed it on Abe Lincoln,
as portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film. Never mind that a
high-priced collection plate and the passage of the 13th Amendment have
little in common. It’s all in a day’s work for a woman who claims to be
for the Little Guy but spends most of her time frolicking with the
political and financial elites.
Then
again, Hillary has long believed that “the personal is political,”
especially when political power can benefit her personally. Indeed, as
the emails show, her public career has been based on showing one face to
her gullible supporters and another, more ruthless one to allies and
adversaries behind closed doors.
Let’s
review the evidence. Thirteen years after she and Bill left the White
House in 2001 “dead broke,” Hillary regaled the well-fed bankers and
financial managers at Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, Inc., with tales of
her humble lifestyle before she and Bubba learned how to spin the dross
of “public service” into the finest gold access and protection money can
buy: “I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in
the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had
that feeling when I was growing up. I mean, were there really rich
people, of course . . . but we had a solid middle-class upbringing. 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.”
Forget
that those “fortunes” came from the very rigging she was supposedly
decrying; as secretary of state, Hillary had to deal with lots of
unsavory characters — but sometimes their natures were made sweeter by
their touching thoughtfulness toward the Clintons.
Clinton with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in 2014:
Qatar,
like most Muslim countries, treats women as second-class citizens, but
champion-of-women Hillary never lets a little thing like that stop her
from doing business. (See: “On favors.”) And a far greater threat than
murderous Muslims adhering to a fanatical 7th-century religious ideology
lurks right here at home — those pesky Roman Catholics and their silly
2,000-year-old faith. (See: “On Catholics.”)
The
bigotry shown by her campaign aides is a hint of what’s to come under a
Hillary administration: continuing pressure on Catholics to adapt to
contemporary “progressive” social-justice norms. Not that she’s likely
to put it so bluntly, especially during the campaign. That might
alienate potential Catholic voters.
Ah,
but universal brotherhood — that’s the real Clinton goal, right?
Privately, you might have to stroke a few brows from time to time. (See:
“Needy Latinos.”) But far beyond the Rio Grande, there’s a potentially
much wider electorate to appeal to when the time is right to admit it.
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.”
Ignore
the feel-good boilerplate about green energy in the quote above,
delivered in a $225,000 speech to the Brazilian Banco Itau in New York
City in May 2013. Emails from mid-2015 show her trying to defend her
previous support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership but ultimately
rejecting it publicly for populist political reasons — for now.
Secretary
of State Clinton at a press conference in Doha, Qatar, with
then-Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Bin
Jaber al-Thani in 2011: EPA
In
short, don’t expect any mea culpas when the time is right for a
180-degree spin. For a Clinton is never wrong, merely evolving.
The
distinction between the public and private Hillary is masked partly via
her cozy relationships with reporters — whether her aides are planting
stories with sympathetic journalists, sneaking a peek at debate
questions in advance or just keeping their ear to the ground: “I just
wanted to make sure John Podesta had a heads up that his name will be in
a story concerning the White House’s ethics policy, which could run on Monday,” wrote Washington Post White House bureau chief Juliet Eilperin in a March 21, 2015, email to an Obama staffer.
In
the public eye since 1992, the Clintons have long memories, rewarding
their friends and punishing their enemies, swatting away annoying flies
like Bill de Blasio — “Should we care about this?” wondered Podesta
privately in response to policy suggestions from the mayor — whose aid
they don’t need. Like the Bourbon monarchy, they’ve learned nothing and
forgotten nothing.
Unsuccessfully
floating the idea in late 2014 of changing the date of Illinois’ 2016
primary, current campaign manager Robby Mook wrote to Podesta, “This is
not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask. And the Clintons won’t forget what
their friends have done for them.” Nor, it goes without saying, what
their enemies have done to them. And certainly not what they’re going to
do to us, should they win next month. But that’s private — for now.
The Clintons never forget
In
November 2014, Mook emailed Podesta about the urgency of pushing a bill
to move the Illinois primary out of March, to stop momentum for a
moderate Republican candidate.
Illinois
was offered “a bonus of 10 percent extra delegates if they move to
April and 20 percent if they move to May,” but didn’t change the date as
it had already done so in 2008.
“Our preference would be for them to move all the way to May, but if they at least move to April 12 or April 19
they will have the day to themselves and presumably garner a lot of
coverage,” wrote Mook. “They will also be influencing a big northeast
primary day on April 26.”
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook: AP
“They don’t really care about being helpful and feel forgotten and neglected by POTUS,” Mook wrote.
On having two personas
“You
just have to sort of figure out how to . . . balance the public and the
private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and
that’s not just a comment about today . . . I mean, politics is like
sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but
we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you
know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then
people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a
public and a private position.”
— Hillary Clinton in a leaked speech to the National Multi-Housing Council in April 2013
On favors
“[Qatar]
would like to see WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] ‘for five minutes’ in
NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday
in 2011.”
— Ami Desai, director of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation, wrote in a 2012 email
On de Blasio
Early
in 2015, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio contacted the campaign
about his Progressive Agenda plan “to organize progressives nationally
to take on income inequality,” he wrote: “I believe you will agree with
much of this content. Please let me know if you want to discuss.”
The email response from Podesta was: “Should we care about this?”
“I’m
not sweating it,” replied Neera Tanden, president and chief executive
of the Center for American Progress, who explained to Podesta:
“Politically, we are not getting any pressure to join this from our
end.”
The dream of open borders
“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.”
— Hillary in her remarks from a leaked speech to Banco Itau in May 2013
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta: AP
Needy Latinos
“A
few calls you might consider making,” Podesta wrote to Clinton in an
email with the subject line “Needy Latinos and 1 easy call.”
On Catholics
Referring to a New Yorker article about News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch (who owns The Post), which stated he is raising his kids Catholic, Clinton aide John Halpin wrote in an email:
“Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.
“Many
of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all
Catholic (many converts) from the SC [Supreme Court] and think tanks to
media and social groups.
“It’s
an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the
systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be
totally unaware of Christian democracy.”
Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for the Clinton campaign, responds:
“I
imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically
conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they
became Evangelicals.”
On Putin
Vladimir Putin attends the International Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg in 2010: AP
“I
would love it if we could continue to build a more positive
relationship with Russia,” Clinton said during a speech to Goldman Sachs
on June 4, 2013. In the same speech, Clinton said, “Obviously we would
very much like to have a positive relationship with Russia and we would
like to see Putin be less defensive toward a relationship with the
United States, so that we could work together on some issues.”
“One
time, I was visiting with him in his dacha outside of Moscow, and he
was going on and on, you know, just listing all of the problems that he
thinks are caused by the United States,” Clinton said. “I said, ‘You
know, Mr. Prime Minister, we actually have some things in common. We
both want to protect wildlife, and I know how committed you are to
protecting the tiger.’ I mean, all of a sudden, he sat up straight and
his eyes got big and he goes, ‘You care about the tiger?’ ”
Out of touch
“I
am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a
growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling
that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing
up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were.
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 . . . 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.”
— Hillary Clinton remarks in a leaked speech to Goldman-BlackRock in February 2014
Collusion with the media …
. . . on TV
John Harwood: Reuters
CNBC host John Harwood to Podesta in an email about a Clinton interview on CNN:
“She looks so much more comfortable talking to Andrea [Mitchell] today than to Brianna [Keilar] a few weeks ago.”
Podesta was thankful for the journalist’s opinion, responding, “I think she’s over the hump.”
Palmieri
also “appreciated” Harwood’s help when he emailed her the suggestion to
look up a certain video dating back to the Nixon presidency that could
be beneficial to their efforts.
. . . in print
“I
just wanted to make sure John Podesta had a heads up that his name will
be in a story concerning the White House’s ethics policy, which could
run on Monday,”
WaPo White House bureau chief Juliet Eilperin told then-Obama White
House assistant press secretary Frank Benenati in a March 21, 2015,
email.
The story appeared March 22, 2015, under the headline, “Obama promised to curb the influence of lobbyists. Has he succeeded?”
. . . and with that “leaked” CNN question
Donna Brazile: Reuters
On March 12,
Donna Brazile, then vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and
a CNN and ABC contributor, allegedly wrote an email to the Clinton
campaign with the subject line “From time to time I get the questions in
advance.”
It continues:
“Here’s one that worries me about HRC…
“Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?”
Palmieri wrote back within three hours, seemingly not as worried:
“Hi. Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it.”
Michael Walsh is an author, screenwriter and contributing editor at PJ Media. His most recent book is “The Devil’s Pleasure Palace.”
No comments:
Post a Comment