“SHE WILL NOT WANT TO PROVOKE WALL ST TOO MUCH”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Nov. 15, 2016) — A June 9, 2015 email released by WikiLeaks shows that Clinton campaign staffers had advance notice of a detailed article Politico reporter Glenn Thrush planned to write about the then-Democrat presidential primary contender.
In the email, which bears the subject, “Readout of upcoming Glenn Thrush piece,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon informed six others, including Clinton pollster and top strategist Joel Benenson of the Benenson Strategy Group, “Glenn Thrush is doing a deep-dive story for late Thursday or Friday on HRC’s economic policy development activities. The story is premised on the notion that she is a true wonk who likes to dive deep into policy, gorging on briefing memos and attending meetings with experts and always asking lots of questions.”
Several other topics in the “readout” were reported to be covered by Thrush, including “Who she is talking to,” “Corporate Governance/Executive Pay” and “Political Tripwires.”
Under Corporate Governance, Fallon commented of Thrush:
He has heard she is developing a plan on this. He does not know what it will include, but his instinct is that this will be a tough one for her to navigate. He suspects there will be some stuff in the Roosevelt report that she will just not want to entertain. Specifically, he said he doubts she will endorse reforming the performance pay exception. She will not want to provoke Wall St too much. In fact, he went so far to say he suspects HRC will try to copy what he thinks Schumer has always tried to do when it comes to navigating the demands of the left with Wall St being his backyard: that is, endorse a little pain for Wall St, while simultaneously trying to justify it to the industry as something more fair-minded than the alternative, pitchfork-style proposals coming from the far left…
Another WikiLeaks email revealed a private, compensated speech Clinton delivered after she resigned as Obama’s Secretary of State in which she attempted to justify “both a public and a private position” about contemplated “reform” of the banking and investment sectors collectively known as “Wall Street.”
Under the “Bottom Line” subheading, Fallon told the group that Thrush apparently had conveyed that he perceived the Clinton campaign risked making its candidate appear “inauthentic” if the agenda were overly “bold” in regard to “progressive issues.”
“I think we should try to dissuade him of this point by suggesting that there is plenty of running room in these policy areas for HRC to be both bold/aggressive and true to herself/not pandering. I also think we should consider throwing some more progressive names out at him in terms of experts we’ve consulted in order to ensure the names he checks in the article gives off the right vibe,” Fallon said.
He then confirmed that Benenson would be speaking to Thrush about his upcoming article, which was not the first about which Thrush coordinated with the Clinton campaign.
Earlier this month, The Daily Caller reported that Thrush admitted “talking directly to campaign officials” on another piece he wrote in April 2015.
This past January, Thrush interviewed Obama in the Oval Office for his “Off Message” internet broadcast in which Thrush characterized Obama as “kinder to Clinton” than her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Yet more WikiLeaks emails released just before the Democrat National Convention in late July revealed that the DNC had predetermined that Sanders would not receive the Democrat nomination despite its pledge of neutrality during the primaries. The discovery prompted the resignations of then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and three other DNC operatives.