Hillary Clinton’s top campaign advisors made the decision to accept money from lobbyists hired by foreign entities without first obtaining her approval or even informing her, newly released emails show.
An email chain published by Wikileaks titled “Re: Foreign registered agents” shows her campaign staff debating to institute a policy barring those who have registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) from contributing to or fundraising for the campaign.
Dennis Cheng, the campaign’s national finance director, wrote in an email dated April 13, 2015: “We really need [to] make a policy decision on this soon – whether we are allowing those lobbying on behalf of foreign governments to raise $ for the campaign. Or case by case.”
Marc Elias, the campaign’s general counsel, responded later in the thread: “This is really a straight up political call. One middle option is to take case by case. If, for example, they are FARA registered for Canada, we may not case. If for N. Korea we would. But really comm’s call.”
Ultimately, the campaign staff decided to allow fundraising for the campaign by registered foreign agents. Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, wrote: “Marc made a convincing case to me this am that these sorts of restrictions don’t really get you anything…that Obama actually got judged MORE harshly as a result. He convinced me. So…in a complete U-turn, I’m ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks.”
The last word on the chain went to communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who wrote: “Take the money!!”
Six days later, however, another exchange reveals that the decision was made without the approval or knowledge of Clinton.
Huma Abedin, the longtime senior Clinton aide and vice chair of the Clinton campaign, wrote in an email to Mook: “HRC read in paper that we are taking FARA money.”
“She doesn’t want to?” Mook replied.
“[S]he just didnt [sic] know that we had decided to accept it,” Abedin responded. “[W]anted to know who the individuals are and wants to weigh in.”
The emails, derived from the hacked archive of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, provide insight into the nature of decision making in the Clinton camp. In addition to highlighting the considerable autonomy high level staff apparently enjoyed, the emails also show that concerns about potential outside influence on the campaign appear to have taken a backseat to pragmatic considerations about the optics of the policy and the money the campaign stood to lose from imposing the ban.
“Is there anyway [sic] to ballpark what percent of our donor base this would apply to (aka how much money we’re throwing away)” asked Jesse Ferguson, Clinton’s deputy national press secretary, at one point early on in the exchange.
“Cost benefits are easier to analyze with the costs,” Ferguson wrote.
