Clinton hits the trail with Michelle Obama amid fallout from WikiLeaks revelations
The combination of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, first ladies past and present, drew a Donald Trump-like crowd of 11,000 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Thursday.
Obama was there to serve as character witness for Clinton in one of the most competitive battleground states in the country. Her own husband won the state in 2008, then lost it in 2012.
“Voting is our high, that’s how we go high — we vote,” Obama said, referencing her most popular campaign trail line, a call to “go high” when “they go low.”
As Clinton campaigned, her aides were contending with fallout from the latest WikiLeaks revelation — a 12-page memo from 2011 outlining how Bill Clinton’s top aides asked big corporate donors to the Clinton Foundation to “offer President Clinton paid speeches,” encouraging “$900,000” here and “$700” thousand there.
Both Clintons have long insisted that the foundation was not a source of income.
“My husband doesn’t take a salary. He has no financial interests in any of this,” Clinton said years ago, during her confirmation hearing to the secretary of state post.
A foundation audit performed in 2011 found the “need for clearer policy guidance... to manage potential conflicts of interest.”
Trump, campaigning in Toledo, Ohio, Thursday, pointed to the documents as proof that “if she got the chance, she’d put the Oval Office up for sale.”
Hacked emails from 2014 show campaign officials were worried about “press scrutiny” of the foundation even before Clinton announced her bid.
Another exchange from 2015 shows how they were caught off-guard the night the New York Times broke the news that Clinton had used a private server as secretary of state.
Campaign chair John Podesta wrote, “Did you have any idea of the depth of this story?”
Campaign manager Robby Mook replied, “Nope. We brought up the existence of emails in research this summer but were told that everything was taken care of.”
Months later, confidants were still expressing frustration.
Neera Tanden, head of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, wrote to Podesta at one point: “Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and quartered?”