There is a reason that the establishment media is devoting so little airtime to the Wikileaks revelations: the hacked emails show how many establishment media people are working with Clinton family to rig the election.
Here is a list of some of media actions that have been exposed, so far.
Haim Saban, chairman of Univision
Spanish Language network Univision went on the offensive against Donald Trump almost immediately, leading to a contentious relationship that led to anchor Jorge Ramos being tossed from a Trump a news conference in Iowa in August, 2015.
Now the Miami Herald has reported that Univision’s chairman and Hollywood media mogul Haim Saban pushed the Clinton campaign to take on Trump.
Now, a series of emails pirated from the Democratic National Committee and published in the past week by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks show that within days of Trump’s June 16, 2015, announcement of his candidacy, Univision’s chairman, Haim Saban, was urging the Clinton campaign to take a tougher stance on Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“Haim thinks we are underreacting to Trump/Hispanics. Thinks we can get something by standing up for Latinos or attacking R’s (Republicans) for not condemning,” Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta wrote July 3, 2015, in an email to other Clinton staffers.
The email drew an immediate response from Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House spokeswoman who is communications director for the Clinton campaign: “Haim is right – we should be jamming this all the time.”
In statement, Saban’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Pillersdorf, acknowledged Saban has “been a supporter of Hillary separate and way before his involvement with Univision,” but said that played no factor in Univision coverage and emphasized that point by saying, “Not even one iota. Zero, zero, zero.”
Saban also denied any influence over the company he’s chairman of in another email Wikileaks published. The Herald reports:
When the conservative Hot Air website published an article headlined “Univision’s pro-Hillary boosterism” that called the network Clinton’s “not-so-secret weapon,” Saban jotted a quick email to the campaign’s staff: “I have nothing to do with it. I NEVER tell our news DEP what to cover . . . unlike some of my peers.”
That brought a response from Huma Abedin, a close aide to Clinton: “Welcome to our world!”
But BloombergBusinessWeek magazine put Saban on its cover in October, while highlighting his close ties to Clinton — and his business and political clashes with Donald Trump.
Last year, Univision disclosed that it had a plan to enable Televisa, which now owns almost 10 percent of the company, to increase its position to as much as 40 percent. But that would require the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, which must review any proposal to raise foreign ownership of a U.S. broadcast company beyond 25 percent. To pull this off, Saban needs a supportive administration in Washington. “Hillary is more likely to bless any expansion of foreign ownership between the two than Trump is,” says veteran media analyst Porter Bibb.
John Harwood of CNBC, The New York Times
John Harwood is a liberal contributor to The New York Times and a CNBC correspondent who was chosen to moderate one of the Republican primary debates. Wikileaks’s emails have shown he tried to be an informal advisor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
One topic of concern was the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private email server. As Breitbart News reported:
On July 24, 2015, the day that the Times and other news outlets reported that an investigation by the inspectors general of the State Department and other federal agencies had concluded that Clinton had classified information on her private email server, contrary to her earlier public statements, Harwood emailed Podesta and Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, reassuringly: “set aside process – if there’s any specific/plausible suggestion of nefarious email @HillaryClinton was trying to hide, I haven’t heard it.”
On Oct. 1, the day after the State Department released another batch of Clinton’s recovered emails, Harwood emailed Podesta: “how are you feeling about where things stand?” Podesta replied: “Battered but ok.” Harwood replied: “Sounds right to me.”
Later that month, on Oct. 28, Harwood would go on to moderate the third Republican primary debate, and delivered a performance so obviously biased that even liberal commentators had to admit he had proven conservative suspicions correct. Harwood did not ask about Clinton’s emails.
Rebecca Quick of CNBC
Harwood’s co-moderator at that Republican Primary Debate was Rebecca Quick, the co-host of CNBC’s Squawk Box and anchorwoman of On the Money.
One Wikileaks email revealed Quick’s pledge to cheerlead for Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As Breitbart News reported:
In the April 11, 2014, e-mail, [Erskine] Bowles wrote to Quick to praise Burwell in the wake of the negative news coverage surrounding the appointment. “I listen to some of the talk today about Sylvia’s move to HHS,” wrote Bowles. “As you may recall, I picked Sylvia and John Podesta to be my two Deputy Chiefs of Staff. I picked Sylvia not only because she is brilliant (Rhodes), really Becky Quick like nice, informed and smart, but most importantly to me she knows how to run a large organization and run it effectively. … Regardless of your politics, any American should be glad that the President picked someone so competent to head such a critically important agency.”
Less than three minutes later, Quick promised to “defend” Burwell. “Thanks so much for the note—anyone with your recommendation is good by me,” wrote Quick. “Wish I’d seen this earlier while we were still blabbering! I’m out the first two days of next week but will make sure to defend her when things get further along in the nomination process.”
Bowles later forwarded the e-mails to Podesta, who thanked him, writing, “This will help a lot and I think at the end of the day most of these Senators will come through… At any rate, thanks for coming thru as you always do. Love to Crandall and hope you’ll come to the Casa Podesta upcoming dinner to celebrate Sylvia’s swearing in.”
Erskine Bowles is the former president of the University of North Carolina and the former chairman of Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Maggie Haberman of The New York Times and Politico
Glenn Greenwald and Lee Fang reported at The Intercept on documents that they were given exclusively by hacker Guccifer 2.0 which detailed how political writer Maggie Haberman has helped the Clinton family.
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. Nick Merrill, the campaign press secretary, produced the memo, according to the document metadata.
That strategy document plotted how Clinton aides could induce Haberman to write a story on the thoroughness and profound introspection involved in Clinton’s decision-making process. The following month, when she was at the Times, Haberman published two stories on Clinton’s vetting process; in this instance, Haberman’s stories were more sophisticated, nuanced, and even somewhat more critical than what the Clinton memo envisioned.
The story from The Intercept also shows how the Clinton campaign plants “surrogates” in the media, often who are on the Family Team.
Other documents listed those whom the campaign regarded as their most reliable “surrogates” — such as CNN’s Hilary Rosen and Donna Brazile, as well as Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden — but then also listed operatives whom they believed were either good “progressive helpers” or more potentially friendly media figures who might be worth targeting with messaging. The metadata of the surrogate document shows the file was authored by Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director of the campaign. As The Intercept previously reported, pundits regularly featured on cable news programs were paid by the Clinton campaign without any disclosure when they appeared; several of them are included on this “surrogates” list, including Stephanie Cutter and Maria Cardona.
John Harris, Editor-in-Chief, Politico.
In March 2015, The New York Times reported that Bill Clinton was causing trouble for the campaign by speaking off-script. In response, John Harris, Politico’s top editor, sent an email to Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton chief flack.
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WILL BILL GET A MINDER? NYT A1, “Clinton Team Hopes to Keep Bill at His Best,” by Patrick Healy and Amy Chozick: “In hopes of collaborating with Mr. Clinton better than in 2008 … advisers to Mrs. Clinton are involving him more closely in early campaign planning, and they are discussing whether to deploy a senior aide to travel with him to keep him focused on his wife’s central message. …
It is not clear if the email was a tongue-in-cheek joke by a journalist seeking to break news whenever Clinton went off-script, or insider ingratiation with Palmieri, or a coy request for a job. But Palmieri forwarded the email to Podesta, with her judgement of Harris’s trustworthiness: “Harris is volunteering. Seems sound.”
Donna Brazile of CNN and the Democratic National Committee, Roland Martin of TV-One.
Longtime Clinton ally Donna Brazile, then a CNN contributor but now acting head of the Democratic National Committee, appears to have emailed members of the Clinton campaign to tip them off about a question that would be asked at Clinton’s debate with Bernie Sanders.
In this case, the cover-up is also at least as bad as the crime.
“From time to time I get the questions in advance,” was the subject line of an alleged email in which Brazile gave Clinton’s campaign the heads up for a question on the death penalty.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Brazile denied leaking questions, saying “I often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any suggestions that indicate otherwise are completely untrue.”
However, as Hadas Gold at Politico wrote:
The email obtained by POLITICO was written by town hall co-moderator Roland Martin on the day of the town hall to CNN producers. But it shows him using word for word the language of a question that Brazile appeared to have sent to the Clinton campaign a day earlier. That email, from Brazile to the campaign, was included in yesterday’s release of hacked emails by Wikileaks of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.
Here’s what the record shows: On March 12, Brazile, then vice chair of the DNC and a CNN and ABC contributor, allegedly wrote an email with the subject line “From time to time I get the questions in advance.” It continues:
> Here’s one that worries me about HRC.
> DEATH PENALTY
> 19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That’s 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?
Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for the Clinton campaign, 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.
She then instructs a copied employee to share the campaign’s standard answer to the question to Brazile.
The next day, Roland Martin, a host on the TV One cable network who was co-hosting the town hall with CNN’s Jake Tapper, sent an email to CNN producers with three questions, the third of which dealt with the death penalty. POLITICO obtained that email, and here’s the text of the third question:
> DEATH PENALTY
> 19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That’s 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?
The wording, spacing, capitalization are identical.
CNN’s Jake Tapper told Larry O’Connor on his WMAL radio show Thursday morning that he believes the leak, including the word-for-word question, must have come from Martin’s camp, telling O’Connor, “My understanding is the email to Donna came from either Roland Martin or someone around Roland Martin.” Tapper went on to say:
It’s horrifying. Journalistically it’s horrifying and I’m sure it will have an impact on partnering with this organization in the future and I’m sure it will have and effect on… Donna Brazile is no longer with CNN because she’s with the DNC right now, but I’m sure it will have some impact on Donna Brazile.
One would hope it would have some impact, since the current DNC head appears to be telling a story that directly contradicts all available evidence.
Hours after Wikileaks dropped the material, Brazile issued a statement saying “I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did.”
Roland Martin himself was more cagey, as Brian Stetler reports:
Martin did not deny sharing information with Brazile. Instead, when asked by CNNMoney, he said “my questions were shared with my executive producer and several members of my TV One team.”
When asked in a followup question if he would explicitly rule out any sharing of questions with Brazile, Martin did not respond.
Dan Merica of CNN
The Wikileaks drop also shows that Hillary Clinton has a real fondness for CNN pool reporter Dan Merica.
The Daily Caller reported that “Clinton’s director of Latino outreach Lorella Preali wrote to press secretary Nick Merrill on February 26, 2016 to describe a campaign trip to Georgia in the weeks leading up to the state primary.
Praeli described how Clinton “addressed the Democratic Caucus” at the Statehouse.
Clinton “did a short version of her stump that was very crisp,” she explained. “People loved it. There were no press in the room.”
Praeli next described how the former secretary of state “took many a selfie while wading through throngs of people, with more pouring over the balconies, and headed to Octane coffee shop for an OTR.”
At the coffee shop, “Dan Merica asked her if she was jealous that she didn’t get Chris Christie’s endorsement,” after he dropped out of the Republican primary.
“She responded with a prolonged smile (you could see the gears turning), and then said, ‘Dan, I really like you. I really, really like you,’” she continued. “They are basically courting each other at this point.”
Previous hacked emails show this wasn’t the Clinton campaign’s sole instance of targeting Merica.
Marjorie Pritchard of The Boston Globe
Pritchard is the Op-Ed editor for Boston Globe and she appears to have gone above and beyond the call of duty, helpfully suggesting to th Clinton campaign when it could run to have maximum impact for Clinton.
In this email, Pritchard makes suggestions about the timing of an editorial;
Hi John,
Just wondering if we are still on for that piece. Brian said last week it
was ready and just needed approval. It would be good to get it in on
Tuesday, when she is in New Hampshire. That would give her big presence on
Tuesday with the piece and on Wednesday with the news story.
Please let me know.
Thanks,
Marjorie
Louise Mensch, editor of Heat Street
Louise Mensch is the editor of Heat Street, Rupert Murdoch’s latest site, which is targeted at conservatives. Yet the Wikileaks drop shows Mensch is a fan of Hillary Clinton, so much so that she furtively tried to write campaign ads for Clinton.
Mrs. Mensch runs the Rupert Murdoch-backed blog Heat Street, which claims to stand against identity politics and what it labels “social justice warriors” under the slogan “no safe spaces.”
However, its editor in chief, Mrs. Mensch, was caught writing a campaign advertisement script for the Democratic candidate – a woman who has traded off identity politics and social justice warrior politics. The ad appears to be based on the idea that Mrs. Clinton should be in office simply because she is female and is supported by “multiracial” women.
“… much rather have your girl Hillary,” Mrs. Mensch wrote in an email to Michael Kives of Creative Arts Agency (CAA), a former Clinton campaign advocate.
The email reads:
Subject: Hillary ad
Dear Michael, As you will know from Arnold I am a committed Republican (or would be if I had the vote this year). But I worry no end about Donald Trump becoming our President… much rather have your girl Hillary.
Anyway, the politician in me thinks Lena Dunham and Gloria Steinem are nails on a chalkboard to the average American woman AND I think Hillary is not capitalizing on the yearning that we have to see a woman as President properly.
Her competence and intelligence are beyond doubt, her problem is warmth.
If I may, here is an ad I would love to see run;
OUR TIME
A succession of mostly young women, a few old women, one with a baby daughter, multiracial and multi-occupation, to include a nurse and a woman in uniform of some kind where permitted…
one after the other, smiling and looking to camera and saying ‘It’s our time.’
and the last woman says, ‘It’s our time. I’m with her.’
fade to banner credit ‘Hillary 2016’
—-
That would be inspirational, aspirational, and the kind of riff you really need on ‘Yes we can’.
Best, Louise
HeatStreet can’t claim to be above using Wikileaks a a source, since it has done cover stories based on the Wikileaks release.
Sidney Blumenthal
Finally, in the names of balance it’s important to note that it’s not all wine and roses for Podesta and the media, as another email shows that Podesta and other members of the team express frustration about Clinton advisor and journalist Sidney Blumenthal.
In this email exchange, John Podesta says something about Clinton advisor and journalist Sidney Blumenthal that many people would agree with:
It always amazes me that people like Sid either completely lack self awareness or self respect. Maybe both. Will you promise to shoot me if I ever end up like that?
There’s no indication in the emails that this policy will be implemented.