Hillary spokesperson calls WikiLeaks email about Catholics, “latest faux controversy”

10/13/16
 
   < < Go Back
 
from The Washington Post,
10/13/16:

The latest batch of documents published by WikiLeaks appears to show Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications director joking with a confidant about Catholics and evangelicals in emails sent to John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s campaign.

Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who ran communications for the liberal think tank Center for American Progress that Podesta founded, responded to emails from think tank fellow John Halpin who noted a 2011 report in the New Yorker about News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch and Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson raising their children Catholic.

“Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the [Supreme Court] and think tanks to the media and social groups,” Halpin wrote in the 2011 email, according to WikiLeaks. “It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

Palmieri responded that she believes Murdoch, Thomson and many other conservatives are Catholic because they think it’s “the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.” “Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals,” she wrote. Podesta did not respond in the email thread.

The Clinton campaign declined to comment Wednesday on the contents of the 2011 emails in question, instead linking to a tweet from Clinton’s press secretary Brian Fallon.

More From The Washington Post: