Clinton campaign braces for more DNC leaks
PHILADELPHIA — The Clinton campaign is bracing for another WikiLeaks email dump.
Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign’s communications director told reporters she wouldn’t be surprised if the rogue organization notorious for publishing hacked documents releases more emails from the trove it stole from the Democratic National Committee.
Palmieri said the campaign was not concerned about any of its emails or documents being released, and downplayed the impact another dump could have on the rest of the Democratic convention that will officially nominate Clinton for president Tuesday evening in a roll call vote of delegates.
“We’re not concerned about our emails. The Wikileaks leak was obviously designed to hurt our convention so it’s possible that they could do it — I don’t think they’re done,” Palmieri said Tuesday. “That’s how they operate.”
Palmieri said the Clinton campaign wasn’t necessarily expecting anything this week. But she explained that the notion that WikiLeaks isn’t done targeting Clinton, which the organization has basically confirmed, is the reason why the campaign believes the Russian government is behind the hack.
“People need to understand, when these leaks happen, what they’re designed to do,” she said. There is some speculation, which has been embraced by the Clinton campaign, that Vladimir Putin’s regime hacked the DNC to help Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has expressed a fondness for the Russian strongman.
Day one of the Democratic convention was marred by revelations that the DNC worked against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the primary. Clinton was positioned to win that race and the DNC’s minor meddling didn’t amount to much, but Sanders delegates were offended.
DNC chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, was forced to resign and give up any role at the convention. But that wasn’t enough to placate Sanders loyalists, many of whom booed any mention of Clinton on Monday during the first couple hours of the convention.
The campaign said it was pleased with how the Sanders forces and the Clinton campaign cooperated to present a unified front on the party platform and rules packag
“We think yesterday we were really pleased that the, not just by voice vote but by enthusiastic voice vote, all of the delegates approved the platform, and we believe that’s because it’s the most progressive party platform that the Democrats have adopted,” Palmieri said. “That happened because Sen. Sanders’ campaign and our campaign came together to work very hard to develop that.”
The Tuesday session in Philadelphia features the roll call vote on the convention floor to nominate Clinton, the first woman to lead a major party ticket, and a speech by her husband, President Bill Clinton.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is skittish about endorsing a “carbon tax,” despite her party laying out an aggressive environmental platform that supports enacting a nationwide fee on fossil fuel emissions.
The tax would be levied on carbon dioxide emissions that many scientists blame for driving manmade global warming.
Clinton’s staff said the reason for her wariness stems from lack of support, not surprisingly, in the Republican-controlled Congress for such a tax. Congress would have to approve any new nationwide tax.
“Democrats believe that climate change is too important to wait for climate deniers in Congress to start listening to science,” Clinton’s energy policy adviser, Trevor Houser, said Tuesday on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Houser added that “while it’s always important to remain open to a conversation about how to address this issue with Congress, we need a plan that we can implement day one, because it’s too important to wait, and we need to focus on those things as well.” He spoke at a policy event held by the Washington Post in Philadelphia.
He told attendees that Clinton’s climate change policy likely will support executive actions such as President Obama’s climate regulations she has said she will support if elected in November.
But the regulations are being heavily contested in the courts, with the Supreme Court halting the centerpiece of the rules, the Clean Power Plan, in February. The plan directs states to cut their carbon emissions a third by 2030.
She may have to go forward with her own policy if the Obama plan is vacated, delayed or trimmed by the courts. Oral arguments in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals are to be held Sept. 27, about five weeks before the elections.
Grover Norquist, head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, said it’s clear that Clinton won’t endorse a carbon tax because it would significantly weaken her chances in the general election.
“When counting to 270 — the number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency — the Republicans may have already won the election in five short words: ‘We oppose any carbon tax,'” Norquist said Tuesday.
He said it’s important to see the differences between the Democratic and GOP platforms.
The Democratic Party endorses “a carbon tax on the American people.” He said the carbon tax language added to the platform at the last minute is expansive, saying Democrats believe carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases blamed for causing global warming “should be priced to reflect their negative externalities.”
Norquist said the policy would hurt Clinton in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that are both coal producers and centers of the fracking boom.
“Note the overlap between new fracking states — Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado — and the swing states to reach 270 for any candidate,” he said.
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