Hill’s secret ‘Santa’
E-mails bare mystery meetings
WASHINGTON — There was a mysterious Christmas in July in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department.
The latest treasure trove of emails shows she meets with someone she calls “Santa.”
“I’m seeing Santa at 8:30 so won’t take off until closer to 9:30,” Clinton emailed longtime aide Huma Abedin on July 6, 2009. “Is that OK?”
A couple of months later, Clinton emails Abedin about fitting Santa into her schedule again.
“The timing, however, is hard for a visit since I need to see Santa around 7:45 after seeing Lisa,” Clinton wrote on Sept. 27, 2009.
The fresh 3,000 pages of Clinton emails released late Tuesday offer a rare glimpse into the constant scheduling, meticulous speech writing and obsessed media relations for the nation’s thentop diplomat.
There’s no word from Clinton’s presidential campaign or the State Department on the identity of the secret Santa. Among other findings:
Madame secretary let staffers know when she was thirsty. “Pls call Sarah and ask her if she can get me some iced tea,” one message read.
She’s a technophobe. On Dec. 23, 2009, Abedin emailed Clinton to hang up the fax phone so a document can be sent. “I thought it was supposed to be off the hook to work,” Clinton responds.
Bill Clinton didn’t directly tell Hillary he had been appointed UN special envoy to Haiti following a devastating 2009 earthquake. Instead, Bill aide Doug Band relayed the news to Hillary Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.
In a separate email, Clinton asks her assistant: “Where is Bill? Can I call his cell or Doug’s?”
But Bill, whose Clinton Foundation collects donations from wealthy foreigners, also meddled by editing Hillary’s speeches. “WJC reviewed your edits,” Abedin wrote Hillary on May 26, 2009, on an upcoming speech. “Said they were all good Has some of his own.”
Hillary carefully monitored the media and relished good press.
Burns Strider, a former Hillary campaign aide, emailed her after a glowing Associated Press story about her African trip was released.
Strider’s email subject line read: “Damn this is good.” She forwarded the email to her State Department staff on Aug. 14, 2009, adding “We should figure out how to distribute this.”