Introduction: John Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign Chairman. Podesta previously served as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama.

On October 7th, 2016, WikiLeaks publish thousands of emails belonging to Podesta’s private email archives. More emails were released in the days that followed. Below is a compilation of some of the most revealing and damaging emails discovered:

Last updated October 20, 2024

POLICY / POSITION

Transcripts from Hillary Clinton’s lucrative closed-door paid speeches delivered to elite financial firms and other special interests groups (which she has refused and failed to disclose to the public after much demand) have finally surfaced:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (See Attachment)

Clinton staff conspiring to stage ‘leaking’ of favorable excerpts from wall street speech, in efforts to calm down the public while leaving out more damaging parts:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8086#efmAYqAgR

Leaked private speech, Clinton: “You Need Both A Public And A Private Position”
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmAaQAdiFjUFkd

Leaked private speech, Clinton: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with
open trade and open borders”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmFjUFkd

Mocking environmentalists in private meeting with unions, Clinton: “I want to defend fracking.” Climate change environmentalists should “Get a life”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9617 (See attachment)
Politico article

Leaked private speech transcript shows Clinton’s warm ties to Wall Street’s most powerful figures: Clinton: “There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives” The pressure on officials to sell or divest assets in order to serve, she added, had become “very onerous and unnecessary”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmDEMDKk

Leaked private speech to Goldman Sachs, Clinton: Wall street was only accountable for the financial crisis for political reasons. The blame placed on the United States banking system for the crisis “could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmA2YA5Q

Leaked private speech to Goldman Sachs, Clinton: “I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where the banks are not doing what they need to do because they’re scared of regulations, they’re scared of the other shoe dropping, they’re just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way it needs to to restart economic growth.”
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11011

Leaked private speech, Clinton: US will “ring China with missile defense”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (See attachment)

Hillary Clinton flipped her public position on TPP after her team discussed how she would be “eaten alive” by Labor:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8452#efmAH1APRA0NA5c

Clinton speechwriter: “We are trying to find a good way to leak her opposition to the pipeline without her having to actually say it”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3855#efmAAGADH

Clinton campaign: Strengthening bribery laws is ‘really dicey territory’ for her:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/17343#efmARzATdAeFAfj

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Hillary admits Qatar & Saudi Arabia are funding ISIS:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774#efmBA5BDe

Qatar gifts Bill Clinton $1,000,000 for his birthday:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396#efmAEOAGW

“Take the money”: Clinton Campaign welcome foreign donations:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11915#efmAAGAAWAFJAGeA0nA3B

King of Morocco to give $12,000,000 for a meeting with Hillary Clinton:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/22030#efmABAADKADLADiAEeAExAFbAH_AJwAKXAOWAO2

Saudi Sheikh won’t donate money to Clinton Foundation unless he receives a phone call from Bill Clinton. Staff responds: Bill won’t do it “unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6775#efmACoADwAIqAJzAOXASM

Leaked private speech transcript: Clinton: Syria no-fly zone (her position) would mean “killing a lot of Syrians”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#attachments (See attachment)

Iran Deal (which Hillary negotiated and defends) “condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf”. John Podesta responds with “Yup”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/727#efmAAGAAJABQAEL

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta owned 75,000 shares in Putin-connected energy company:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4635#efmAFyAGUAWLAYP

MEDIA COLLUSION

Clinton Staff hosts private “off-the-record cocktail party” with 38 “influential” reporters, journalists, editors, and anchors (from 16 different mainstream media outlets including CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, MSNBC, & more) with the stated goal of “framing the race”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5953 (see attachment)

John Podesta hosts a dinner with reporters: I’m “Cooking for 30 of your reporter friends”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4543#efmAAGABu
Full list of media guests: https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12063

Donna Brazile (CNN contributor at the time, and current DNC Chairman now) leaked a CNN town hall question to Hillary’s staff:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5205#efmAD-AMa

Fox News leaked Town Hall question to Clinton campaign:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/21526#efmAJiAOE

Hillary Clinton reads directly from script during Phone Interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4274#efmAEcAWc
Video: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/786158412119707648

Clinton campaign and the New York Times coordinating attack strategy against Trump:
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4664

New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich gives Hillary veto power:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213#efmDV1DWd

Glen Thrush, POLITICO’s chief political correspondent and senior staff writer for POLITICO Magazine, sends John Podesta an article for his approval. Writes: “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this. Tell me if I fucked up anything”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12681#efmAByAEV

Boston Globe colludes with Clinton campaign to give Hillary a “big presence”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4180#efmAJhALE

John Podesta receiving drafts of New York Times articles before they’re published:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844

Ad for Hillary Clinton secretly pitched by ‘right-leaning’ Heat Street ‘journalist’ Louise Mensch:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5740#efmAMvAUe

More media collusion: NYT and AP “helpful” to Clinton campaign:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5502

Brent Budowsky (writer for The Hill and Huffington Post) warns John Podesta about possible Hillary attacks and that not talking to the press is killing her support: “I’m not going to raise this publicly, but..”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6453#efmARBAUVAVJAXBAfNAhWAkaAl4

Huffington Post contributor Frank Islam writes to John Podesta in email titled “My blogs in the Huffington Post”, says “I am committed to make sure she is elected the next president.” “Please let me know if I can be of any service to you”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5988#efmADmAE6AF-AG1

Clinton staff “Placing a story” with Politico / New York Times: “place a story with a friendly journalist” “we have a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico” “we should shape likely leaks in the best light for HRC”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7524#efmA14A2IA3AA36A9fA-kA-6BAICwpCx4

Clinton staff “placing a story with a friendly at the AP (Matt Lee or Bradley Klapper)”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272#efmBKsBMU

MSNBC’s Meet The Press host and Political Director for NBC News, Chuck Todd, hosted a dinner party in 2015 for Clinton Campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/13686

Leading pro-Hillary personalities Jessica Valenti, Jamil Smith, and Sady Doyle “worked with” the campaign:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/18566

Clinton staff appearing to control the release times of Associated Press articles:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8460

Clinton staff colluding with New York Times and Wall Street Journal to paint Hillary’s economic policies in a “progressive” light:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9007#efmAcTAdS

CNBC panelist colluding with John Podesta on what to ask Trump when he calls in for an interview:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7710#efmAakAd6AjgAlR

CAMPAIGN STRATEGY / CONCERNS

Clinton strategist: We need to “produce an unaware and compliant citizenry” to defeat Trump:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599#efmARKATm

Clinton Foundation Executive, Doug Band: Clintons have over ‘500 Different’ conflicts of interests:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/21978#efmAALABKAD5AGdAGfAHV

Democrats prepared fake Trump “grope under the meeting table” Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016:
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803

Worried about Hillary’s health getting attention: “Hard to think of anything more counter productive than demanding Bernie’s medical records.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2953#efmAAvACJ

Clinton campaign scrambled to escape “calls for transparency” on Hillary’s health and taxes. Campaign manager Robby Mook to chairman John Podesta: Hillary’s health and taxes are “hyper sensitive topics”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11563#efmAAqAEB

Clinton Campaign Insiders Fear Bill’s Sex Life Could Sink Hillary. Podesta says they should “shut the hell up about this”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2301#efmAPjARK

Major concern over Hillary’s shady financing. It can “bring down a Hillary Clinton candidacy”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6900#efmAAGAD3ALmASb

Hillary campaign desperate to generate fake “USA!” chants, calls Trump supporters “angry white guys”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4518

Advisor to John Podesta: “Apologies are like her Achilles heel. But she didn’t seem like a bitch in the interview.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8961#efmADnAFD

Worrying about Hillary’s low turnout at events:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6370#efmAU2AWj

Brent Budowsky (writer for The Hill and Huffington Post) acting as an advisor again: Warns Podesta: “Almost every message being projected outward from her campaign is negative, and a candidate with high distrust ratings should not be doing this. My phone has been ringing and my email box is full with democrats who like me who support her, but like me, are appalled and losing confidence” “This campaign is in very, very big trouble”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7742#efmAAGAE0AlqAnx

John Podesta tells Hillary Clinton she needs to reach out to “needy Latinos”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6777

Clinton allies pondered polling in 2008 about Obama’s cocaine use, his father’s Muslim faith:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7860#efmAQTASMAYtAZ-

Gathering information on Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of raping her:
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10275

Senior Clinton aide Huma Abedin in leaked email: ‘Can we survive not answering questions’ from press?:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5621#efmAUYAUjAcyAdj

Budowsky warns Podesta: “Be very very careful” of the “intense antipathy” being created by Team Hillary. “Many Bernie supporters and younger women will not vote for her in November”. “The daughter of a Democrat who has worked for senior Democrats told me “I just hate her so much I might even vote for a Republican but I will never vote for her.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11580#efmAAGAPF

BERNIE SANDERS

Donna Brazile, now the current DNC chairwoman & replacement for Debbie Wasserman Shultz (who was forced to resign because of being anti-Bernie/Pro-Clinton), leaked insider Bernie Sander’s campaign information to Hillary’s staff:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3023#efmAMFAMSAM-ANBAOIAOhAOiAPV

7 months before Hillary earns nomination over Bernie Sanders, Donna Brazile pledges to John Podesta that “as soon as (Hillary’s) nomination is wrapped up. I will be your biggest surrogate” “Look forward to working with you to elect the first woman President of the United States” says Podesta:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5616#efmACTADd

Concessions given to Bernie Sanders & his supporters were a false illusion of a victory for Bernie’s “self righteous ideologies”. Clinton Advisor: “Bernie and his people have been bitching about super delegates” “Throw Bernie a bone…[…]….his people will think they’ve “won” something from the Party Establishment. It doesn’t make a difference. We don’t lose”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5423#efmAMyAPDAoKAqBAshAs8AzAA2x

Judd Legum, founder and editor of Thinkprogress, sending suggestions to the Clinton campaign on how to own Sanders:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2140

Hillary Clinton’s most trusted aid, Huma Abedin, writes to Hillary’s campaign chairman John Podesta and her campaign manager Robby Mook about receiving insider information about the DNC convention and organizing a private call with Debbie Wasserman Shultz:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7741

Clinton staff discusses Hillary only supporting a carbon tax to knock Bernie Sanders out of the primaries: “To be clear: it’s lethal in the general, so I don’t want to support one. But don’t want to give bernie contrast right now.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8248#efmAAGAHu

Hillary’s campaign manager Robby Mook, in an email to other staff, calls New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio a “terrorist” after Bill de Blasio speaks kindly of Bernie Sanders and stalls on his endorsement for Hillary Clinton during an interview:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7796#efmABDACG

Former Clinton Foundation official reprimands Super Delegate Tulsi Gabbard for endorsing Bernie Sanders and being “disrespectful” to Hillary Clinton:
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3609

Clinton staff: Hillary is convinced Bernie Sanders’ plan is “naive and unworkable”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5512#efmBhkBml

John Podesta calls Bernie Sanders a “doofus”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15464#efmAWBAXK

Hillary’s huge debate prep book against Bernie Sanders (Prepared answers to anticipated debate questions):
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8009 (See attachment)

CRIMINAL LIABILITY

State Department tipping off Hillary’s staff about upcoming investigation details regarding her case:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6185#efmAH_AJdANKAPC

Hillary campaign desperate to “get ahead of the narrative on this email issue”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5344

Hillary’s campaign manager, Robby Mook: “it’s a little troubling” that meeting of Clinton Foundation was held at Goldman Sachs HQ:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1381#efmAAwACA

John Podesta to top Clinton aid Cheryl Mills: Asks if they should “hold emails to and from the President of the United States? That’s the heart of his executive priviledge.” Email dated only a few hours after being served subpoena:
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545

Expresses concern that the Correct The Record superpac is pushing its legal boundaries and may be colluding directly with the campaign:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10068#efmAAGAA4AEFAFn

OTHER

Top Clinton aid Doug Band details how female Clinton Foundation Chief Laura Graham nearly commits suicide by plunging her car into ocean depths because of treatment from Bill & Chelsea Clinton. Staffers write each other about how Chelsea won’t even care about it:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3332#efmAdAAmB

John Podesta wished San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook had been white:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11500#efmAAGABr

“Food Groups” – Clinton campaign organized potential VPs by race and gender:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15616#efmAOPAO6

Top Clinton Aid Doug Band calls Chelsea Clinton a “spoiled brat”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2874#efmANUAObAb9AgY

Clinton Staff mocking conservative Catholics. Advisor to Podesta: “severely backwards gender relations” “they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4364#efmADtAGCALpAPaAPcASW

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook writes to John Podesta May 2015:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/19070#efmACIAD6

Ron Klaine (Joe Biden chief of staff) betrays Joe Biden and acts as a mole for Clinton camp. (Note: Ron Klaine was former Chief of staff for Al Gore in 1999 and was let go because of his conflict of interest/loyalty to the Clintons) Joe Biden was rumored to replace Hillary Clinton as the nominee. “I am definitely dead to them but I’m glad to be on team HRC”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5690#efmACsAE4

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio asking Clinton staff for approval/input about what he will say when asked about Hillary Clinton by interviewer:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5817#efmANjAcC

Podesta speaking about top Clinton aid Sid Blumenthal: “Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies. I pay zero attention to what he says.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7432

Curiel family is friendly with Clinton staffers. Gonzalo Curiel is the judge ruling over a case where Trump is sued. His cousin, Carolyn Curiel, raves about John Podesta; “Carolyn Curiel was just here with a group of Purdue students that visited the debate site. She and I exchanged raves about the two of you.” Podesta replies “Wow! Small world.”:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10205#efmAC4AFE

Hillary Clinton decided on Tim Kaine as VP in July 2015. “A little unseemly.” (She didn’t officially announce Tim Kaine as her VP publicly until July 2016):
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2986#efmABHAB3AB6ACN

Bonus: Clinton staffer shares campaign road trip story of Hillary ordering food at a Chipotle restaurant and nobody recognized her:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8126#efmARTAZ-

Articles

The Intercept: In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots

Yahoo News: Gorbachev warns of ‘dangerous point’ as US-Russia ties sour

Shadow Proof: Clinton Campaign Makes Wildly Inconsistent Claims about Emails Published By WikiLeaks

The Guarding: If Trump Leaks are OK and Clinton leaks aren’t, there’s a problem