A staffer inside Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign used a private Gmail account to dismiss questions from the New York Times about Clinton’s private emails as “ridiculous,” according to a possible email leak from the Clinton campaign.
Clinton staffer Marissa Astor confessed to using her private Gmail account in an email dated March 17, 2015. “Responding from my gmail as I’m having iCloud email issues. Can folks get on the phone at 5:15pm today?,” the email read.
Although using a private email for campaign business isn’t an abuse of federal law, the fact that Astor used the Gmail account to discuss questions from The New York Times about Clinton’s legally problematic private email accounts at the Department of State smacks of extreme irony to many observers.
“We’ve learned that Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan and Monica Hanley, used personal email accounts to correspond with her on her personal account,” Mike Schmidt with The New York Times wrote Clinton staffer Nick Merrill. “She also corresponded with Sidney Blumenthal about inside information he had about Libya.” “Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton? Was this the normal practice?” the email continued.
“When we talked over the weekend you noted that it was fairly irresponsible for them to cherry pick leaked emails and write it up as representative. And some of the questions below are a little ridiculous to say the least,” Merrill replied.
For Clinton staffers, The New York Times reporter is “ridiculous” for asking about the security of so many private email addresses with access to a government server, a line of questioning that many would view as mild and necessary for the reporter to write a balanced article. In point of fact, it appears that the reporter had already decided to discredit leaked Clinton emails, if Merrill is to be believed.
Other Clinton staffers got in on the act. “There is nothing wrong with anyone having personal email addresses or her emailing someone’s private account or vice versa. Maybe she was wishing Jake a happy birthday,” Clinton staffer Philippe Reines added.
“Or I was sending her a note about her mom. Or she asking Monica about Oscar disappearing. We’re allowed to have personal lives,” Reines asserted.
The Clinton campaign scheduled a meeting to discuss possible responses to The New York Times. Clinton staffers Marissa Astor, Jennifer Palmieri, Robby Mook, John Podesta and Huma Abedin were all included in the invite.
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