Emails lay bare what members of Hillary Clinton's own inner circle believe to be her vulnerabilities—from ties to big money to scandal-laden husband
by Lauren McCauley, staff writer
October 10, 2016
Common Dreams
Monday's release marks the second batch of documents obtained by the transparency group from the email account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.(Image: WikiLeaks)
WikiLeaks on Monday dropped its second tranche of the so-called Podesta Emails, laying bare what members of her own inner circle believed were the vulnerabilities of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, from her emails and ties to big money, to her scandal-laden husband and propensity for saying things that are "untrue."
It is the second batch of documents obtained by the transparency group from the email account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The first, released late Friday, contained excerpts of paid speeches the former secretary of state gave to Wall Street banks that were flagged by her aides for being potentially problematic for the presidential hopeful.
On Monday, WikiLeaks made those controversial snippets even more accessible by releasing download options for the 80-page document, which included Kindle, book reader, and pdf formats.
Promoting the release on social media, WikiLeaks highlighted portions of the 2,086 new emails.
Politico also has an ongoing live blog about the developments.
During the Sunday evening debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump, Clinton responded to a question about a line from one of her speeches—that politicians "need both a public and a private position"—which many took to be an admission of the emails' authenticity, contradicting her campaign's stated position.
WikiLeaks celebrated the gaffe by take a swipe at news outlets that questioned the reliability of the anti-secrecy site.
Digging in to speech excerpts, International Business Times senior editor David Sirota on Monday pointed out that Clinton frequently "touted her support for fracking," confirming previous critiques from environmentalists and undermining her claims on the campaign trail that is an opponent of the toxic drilling practice.
Sirota highlights an excerpt from an April 2013 speech to Deutsche Bank, during which Clinton reportedly said "Fracking was developed at the Department of Energy...I mean, the whole idea of how fracking came to be available in the marketplace is because of research done by our government. And I've promoted fracking in other places around the world."
During another speech, in 2014, Clinton blamed "phony environmental groups... funded by the Russians" for sowing opposition to fracking and fossil fuel pipelines.