'Ominously suggestive of wrongdoing...strained...problematic': How Hillary Clinton's team agonized over speech on her email scandal

[superbeets]

[h=1]'Ominously suggestive of wrongdoing...strained...problematic': How Hillary Clinton's team agonized over speech on her email scandal[/h]

• Emails released by WikiLeaks show how Clinton's press officers went over and over a speech on her use of a private email server
• The messages, from 2015, include Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon and her campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri
• Fallon worries about how to make Clinton seem 'relatable' and that one phrase makes the investigation into her emails sound 'ominous'
• The speech aims to demonstrate how carefully Clinton handled classified material - even saying she was told to read important papers 'with a blanket over her head'

By FREYA BERRY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:16, 13 October 2016 | UPDATED: 23:47, 13 October 2016

 

[superbeets]

Hillary Clinton's press staffers fretted about how to chase away the scandal surrounding her use of a private email server and how to make the Democrat seem relatable, leaked emails show.
The messages, sent in late August 2015 and published by WikiLeaks, show Clinton's team reworking a speech directed at explaining the scandal surrounding her using a private email server to conduct state business.
Her advisors are shown worrying about a lighthearted reference to Clinton being given a BlackBerry - which is shot down for seeming 'like a strained attempt to make her seem relatable' and, in another draft, as something that the 'press will find suspicious'.
The messages show the painstaking efforts by her team to smooth over the furor that erupted last year, and their attempts to portray the incident as a mistake made by an ordinary person trying to juggle multiple responsibilities by using a single email account.

 

[superbeets]

+5



Clinton and her press secretary Brian Fallon. Leaked emails published by WikiLeaks between Fallon and communications director Jennifer Palmieri reveal how they fretted about how to chase away the scandal surrounding her use of a private email server

'Hello. I'm sure you are hearing a lot about my emails when I was Secretary of State. So I want to take some time to try and explain what's going on to you directly, in one place, at one time, as best as I can,' the speech begins.
'In 2007, when I was a U.S. Senator, I got my first Blackberry. I used it to keep up with the news, with friends & family - like anyone else.'
In an email sent by Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon to her campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri on Aug. 22, Fallon raises several issues with the draft.
'I also dislike the current reference to her 2007 Blackberry. As written, it seems like a strained attempt to make her seem relatable,' Fallon wrote.
In the speech Clinton also details the secrecy surrounding her handling of classified documents - to the extent that she was told to read high-security material with a blanket over her head.
'Almost everything of a classified nature was presented to me via paper or in person. When I traveled, elaborate steps were taken. ‎Secure phones were set up, secure tents were constructed,' the draft says.
'More than once when a tent was set up in some far-away hotel, I was told to read the classified material with the blanket over my head.
'No, that's not a joke. I took my responsibilities in safeguarding our nation's secrets seriously. So did my team did [sic]. Everyone at the State Department did.'

The planned Clinton speech lays out her case for using a private email server

+5


Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon takes issue with the draft

 

[superbeets]

• SHARE PICTURE

​

+5


Clinton in 2011, when she was Secretary of State, checks her Blackberry from a desk inside a C-17 military plane. The photo of her with the device prompted a recordkeeping official in her office to inquire about whether Clinton had been assigned a State.gov email address



In a previous email sent by Palmieri, she also has problems with the BlackBerry reference.
'Robby’s version is better, but still focuses on the Blackberry, which is weird and press will find suspicious,' she wrote.
The speech seems to have been intended to be used in a video to the public, although that video does not seem to have ever been released. Clinton is not copied in on the emails.
The two advisors also discuss an excerpt on what Clinton expects from the investigation.
'There will be many more emails to pour through. Some will be serious, some will be personal or mundane.
'You know I'm not great with a fax, but you're also going to learn my secret salad dressing recipe and who sent me LinkedIn requests. (And whose I didn't accept!)' the draft reads.

Clinton's campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri worries that listeners to the speech will find the mention of the Democrat's BlackBerry 'suspicious'

+5


John Podesta, pictured in September, has had his Gmail account hacked. The thousands of documents are being published by WikiLeaks

+5


Jennifer Palmieri in November last year

Fallon criticized the phrasing, saying 'the word "serious" reads ominously/ suggestive of wrongdoing. I would say something like "some will give a real window into the day-to-day workings of the State Department...".
He also criticized a passage on the problem of whether Clinton handled classified emails properly, calling the phrasing 'problematic'.
'We should not think it is fine to find something that "should have been classified at the time." Our position is that no such material exists, else it could be said she mishandled classified info,' he said.
'We need to clarify to make clear we mean that it is fine to perform redactions today, but in doing so it doesn't mean that the material was classified at the time it was sent.'
The emails were written roughly two months before Clinton testified on her email handling before Congress last October.

 

[superbeets]

Oh may you fall into the cauldron of hell you evil witch

 

[superbeets]

She has clear and present danger written all over her...and she's surrounded herself with like people.