Candid Clinton pal is star of the show
WASHINGTON — At least someone on Team Clinton tells it like it is.
Hillary confidante Neera Tanden is the star of the WikiLeaks e-mail dump as she veers from the nominee’s usual political double talk in a string of bluntly worded messages.
“Has that person been drawn and quartered? Like [this] whole thing is f--ling insane,” Tanden wrote in a July 25, 2015, missive that called for the head of the staffer responsible for allowing Clinton to set up a private e-mail server.
Unlike many other Clinton pals whose e-mails are tepidly worded, Tanden throws caution to the wind, even when discussing powerful Clinton favorites. In one e-mail, Tanden blasts former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.
“She just can’t say no to this [secrecy] s--t,” Tanden wrote on March 3, 2015.
When Clinton went on NBC to say she was sorry for “confusing” people with her e-mails, Tanden wrote that Clinton should have been more remorseful.
“Apologies are like her Achilles’ heel,” she said on Sept. 4, 2015.
When campaign chairman John Podesta grumbled about campaign setbacks, Tanden responded on Sept. 6, 2015: “Almost no one knows better [than] me that her instincts can be terrible,” referring to Clinton.
Tanden’s candor has gotten the attention of Donald Trump supporters.
One Twitter Trump fan page, @DeplorableTrain, tweeted Thursday: “Of all the people that surround @HillaryClinton, it seems like @neeratanden is the only one with any common sense.”
Tanden, 46, served as deputy campaign manager for Clin- ton’s New York Senate run in 2000 and became policy director of Clinton’s 2008 run for president. She later joined the Obama administration at the Department of Health and Human Services, working on ObamaCare.
Tanden is now president of the Progressive Center for American Politics, founded by Podesta. She is one of four cochairs of Clinton’s transition committee.
Her private e-mails were exposed when WikiLeaks published more than 34,000 of Podesta’s correspondences. US intelligence officials accuse Russia of using the massive hack to meddle with the election.
Asked about her e-mails dur- ing an interview with BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith, Tanden called the personal intrusion a “pretty horrible experience” for herself and her kids.
She regretted bad-mouthing Lawrence Lessig, writing “I f--king hate that guy” on Aug. 11, 2015, when the Harvard professor formed his presidential-exploration committee to challenge Clinton.
“I wrote a terrible thing in a particular moment,” Tanden said. “I apologized profusely to him and he had a very gracious response.”
As for Trump and Republicans praising the leaks, Tanden warned that they could be next: “That is a snake that will bite you in the future.”