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Podesta Emails: Clinton Advisers Discuss Chelsea's Wedding Tab and the Need
to 'Crush' Sanders
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/clinton_adviser_to_podesta_in_leaked_ema
il_bernie_20161106/
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Posted on Nov 6, 2016
All in the family: Chelsea and Bill Clinton pose at a Clinton Foundation
event in 2013. (lifescript / Flickr / CC-BY
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/35560790@N03/8411167233) )
Another day, another Podesta email debacle for the Clinton campaign,
courtesy of WikiLeaks.
Actually, this weekend brought more than one unwelcome surprise from the
trove of emails culled from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's hacked
account and still being released just shy of the presidential election.
READ: WikiLeaks' 'Podesta Emails' Reveal the Power Behind the Clinton
Campaign
(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/wikileaks_podesta_emails_reveal_the_pow
er_behind_the_clinton_campaign_)
First, a bit about the former, and maybe future, First Daughter. Doug Band,
adviser to former President Bill Clinton, had already wound up in a
diplomatically challenging situation last month when a leaked email from
2011 quoted him
(http://www.businessinsider.com/doug-band-chelsea-clinton-leaked-email-2011-
2016-10) as saying Chelsea Clinton was "acting like a spoiled brat kid." On
Sunday, the need for Band to make a series of awkward explanatory phone
calls to members of the Clinton family became even more urgent when two more
reveals were made public via the same channel: Band's emails to Podesta.
The first involved Chelsea's husband, Mark Mezvinsky, who was working his
connection
(http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/chelsea-clinton-foundation-marc-husba
nd-230859#ixzz4PIJ6fpoD ) to his in-laws-and more specifically, to their
Clinton Foundation-to drum up funds for his hedge fund. Politico on Sunday
detailed how that cozy arrangement played out:
In a Jan. 2012 email to Podesta, Mills and current Virginia Gov. Terry
McAuliffe, Band wrote that Mezvinsky invited "several potential investors"
for his hedge fund "and a few current business ones" to a foundation poker
night fundraiser he had been planning.
"I assume all are contributing to the foundation, which of course isn't the
point," Band wrote. "The entire plan of his has been to use this for his
business."
In the same email, Band - referring to Chelsea Clinton by her initials -
wrote that Mezvinsky "has CVC making some calls for him to get mtgs with
some clinton people."
And, in a Nov. 2011 memo released Sunday, Band wrote that major Clinton
Foundation donor Marc Lasry was "assisting Marc Mezvinsky - Chelsea Clinton
Mezvinsky's husband - in raising money for his new fund."
The New York Post spread the word
(http://nypost.com/2016/11/06/chelsea-clinton-used-foundation-to-help-pay-fo
r-wedding-emails/) the same day about allegations regarding Chelsea's own
exploitation of her position within the Clinton dynasty for personal gain:
Chelsea Clinton used her family foundation's cash to pay for her wedding,
living expenses and taxes on gifts of cash from her parents, according to a
bombshell email made public Sunday.
Doug Band, formerly a top aide to President Bill Clinton, griped about the
former First Daughter's spending in a Jan. 4, 2012, email released by
WikiLeaks.
"The investigation into her getting paid for campaigning, using foundation
resources for her wedding and life for a decade, taxes on money from her
parents.." Band wrote to John Podesta, now Hillary Clinton's campaign
chairman.
"I hope that you will speak to her and end this. Once we go down this
road.."
Band also relayed that Chelsea Clinton had confided in one of George W.
Bush's two daughters, Barbara or Jenna, that she was investigating how to
transfer money from the Clinton Global Initiative to the family foundation.
Finally, last Thursday, Clinton adviser and lobbyist Joel Johnson's emailed
words came back to haunt him
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/40401) when WikiLeaks loosed
a concise email sent on Feb. 22 of this year that reads like the stuff of
schlocky movie scripts, topped off by a simple subject line: "Friendly
advice. No mercy":
Bernie needs to be ground to a pulp. We can't start believing our own
primary bullshit. This is no time to run the general. Crush him as hard as
you can. Other than that, hope all is well and congrats on Nevada!
Though the primary season may seem too remote to remember, that was Sen.
Bernie Sanders that Johnson was targeting. So, who is Johnson? Allow Salon
to elaborate
(http://www.salon.com/2016/11/03/leaked-email-bernie-needs-to-be-ground-to-a
-pulp-clinton-advisor-and-lobbyist-wrote-to-john-podesta/) :
Joel Johnson is an influential political operative with a long history in
Democratic circles.
From 1999 to 2001, he served as a senior adviser for policy and
communications under former president Bill Clinton. In 2004, Johnson became
part of the communications team for John Kerry's presidential campaign.
He also previously worked for former Democratic senators Tom Daschle and
Howard Metzenbaum. Daschle is a Podesta ally who, since leaving office, has
himself become a prominent lobbyist.
Johnson corresponded with Podesta and Clinton campaign officials on numerous
occasions over several years. In another email from February of this year,
Johnson wrote, "I know you can't look past Bernie." Emails to Podesta from
various people in 2008 and 2011 also included Johnson as a recipient.
... A 2004 Washington Post story "Lobbyists Take Leave to Advise Kerry
Campaign" listed Joel Johnson as part of a group of "Democratic insiders"
and "lobbyists with close ties to a wide array of businesses, including drug
companies and Microsoft Corp."
Before joining Kerry's campaign, Johnson had served as a managing director
of the Harbour Group, a Democratic public relations firm in Washington that
he had co-founded. The group lobbied on behalf of oil, pharmaceutical, food
processing and airline companies.
The Washington Post noted that Johnson "acted as a strategist for two of the
business world's thorniest legislative issues," working on behalf of the
Asbestos Study Group, a coalition of companies seeking limits on
asbestos-related lawsuits; and Nextel Communications, which was trying to
buy portions of the publicly owned radio-wave spectrum before it later
merged with Sprint.
As for Sanders, the former challenger to the Democratic presidential
nomination didn't seem particularly crushed or fazed by this round of news
about the unseemly business of major-party politicking, as he stepped up his
support
(http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/06/sanders-says-donald-trump-simpl
y-too-dangerous-sit-one-out) for Hillary Clinton over the weekend. During a
rally at Iowa State University, Sanders told the crowd, "Get beyond
personality; that means taking a hard look at what the candidates stand
for."
Sanders' camp also released this campaign ad last week and played it in
crucial zones around the country this weekend:
</p><p>
Meanwhile, by all indications, Doug Band is currently avoiding further
public exposure.
-Posted by Kasia Anderson (http://www.truthdig.com/staff/kasia_anderson)
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