Veteran Democratic legislative and media activist Brent Budowsky of LA Progressive issued a sobering warning to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in March 2015 just before she announced her candidacy about the damage that would result from constantly erupting corruption scandals.
Budowsky told Podesta how discouraged he was to learn “that problems with foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation continue, Hillary Clinton was still making paid speeches for hire this week, and Tony Rodham is hustling gold mining deals in Haiti.” Tony Rodham is Hillary Clinton’s brother.
“If there is one thing that could well bring down a Hillary Clinton candidacy, it is this cycle of money issues about which I am now feeling red alerts, loud bells, warning signals, and red flags,” Budowsky wrote in a March 21, 2015, email to John Podesta. Wikileaks made the email public Saturday.
“And I am now seriously pissed off that there is a real chance that her candidacy and the Democratic Party could be destroyed by these self-created dangers that continue to proliferate the closer she gets to presumably announcing her candidacy.”
Clinton officially announced her candidacy April 12, 2016. Podesta left the White House as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama to be Clinton’s national campaign manager. Budowsky encouraged Podesta to share the email with Clinton, saying “I seriously doubt the Clintons are hearing from those close to them, and if they are hearing it, they are not understanding it.”
Budowsky was a legislative assistant to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, a Texas Democrat, and Rep. Bill Alexander, a Lousiana Democrat who was House Deputy Whip. Budowsky is a featured author on LA Progressive, which says it “openly and unapologetically supports and employs advocacy journalism.”
Budowsky offered to “play the bad guy here because I do not want her money and because she needs to hear this from her friends and she will sure as hell be attacked for this by her enemies, and it will be megaphoned throughout the media, and foreign donations and paid speeches and hustling gold mining deals by her brother are entirely legitimate issues that are self-created, and must self-corrected before it is too late.”
It was urgent that Podesta get Bukowsky’s message to Clinton, Bukowsky said, because “I do not believe the Clintons fully understand the magnitude and immediacy of the danger in the current political and media climate.”
Podesta was White House Chief of Staff under President Clinton and was founder of the Center for American Progress, the liberal think tank.
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