The Hillary Clinton Campaign threw an off the record party and only liberal media were invited, recently leaked emails revealed.
A source identifying himself as Guccifer 2.0 provided The Intercept with emails revealing “friendly and highly useful relationships” between the Clinton campaign and the U.S. media.
Those emails showed that the Clinton campaign held a private, “off-the-record” dinner with “influential reporters, anchors and editors” on April 10, just two days before Clinton officially announced her presidential bid. The cocktail party took place at Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson’s home.
According to the memo sent out by deputy press secretary Jesse Ferguson, the goals of the dinner included giving “reporters their first thoughts from team HRC in advance of the announcement,” “setting expectations for the announcement and launch period,” and “framing the HRC message and framing the race.”
A total of 38 guests RSVP’d yes, including journalists from all three broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC, and more. ABC’s Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos (who previously worked in the Clinton administration), NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, CBS’s Vicki Gordon, Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Daily Beast’s Jackie Kucinich, Huffington Post’s Whitney Snyder, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and Politico’s Mike Allen all RSVP’d to the dinner.
Twelve journalists declined including Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, NBC’s Chuck Todd, New York Times’ Carolyn Ryan, CNN’s Erin Burnett and Jake Tapper, and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. (Spelling errors are in original email.)
Here is the full list of RSVPs:
CNN’s Jake Tapper also declined the event, and in a later email posted on WikiLeaks sent June 23, Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta asked, “Why is Jake Tapper such a dick?”
On Oct. 7, Tapper responded to that leaked email and Podesta’s question on Twitter saying, “It’s a question that has confounded millions of people for hundreds of years…” tagging all three of the names mentioned in the email thread (Podesta, Campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri and Campaign Deputy Communications Director Kristina Schake).
No wonder only 6 percent of Americans trust the media.
