Email troubles undermine Clinton’s attacks

Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON

Once again, Hillary Clinton’s carefully laid campaign plans have been disrupted by old emails.

On a day in which Clinton was hoping to inflict considerable damage on Donald Trump – this time, by ripping into his economic agenda – her campaign was on the defensive, scurrying to clean up the latest damaging revelations in years-old messages that were sent by Clinton and her staff and released as the result of a lawsuit.

The ongoing email dispute undermined the potency of a speech for which Clinton’s campaign had been laying groundwork all week, one in which she presented her economic agenda in full and tried to brand her self-styled populist rival a fraud.

Clinton, speaking in Michigan, did manage to deliver a combative, policy-laden address that effectively rebutted the economic plan that Trump presented in the battleground state days before.

But Clinton has had difficulty staying on task. The fresh batch of emails was pried from the State Department thanks to a lawsuit filed by the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch. It revealed what appeared to be seedy dealings by Clinton’s team at the agency.

In one message, a top Clinton aide appears to be trying to get a million-dollar donor from the family’s Clinton Foundation access to the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, after an executive at the foundation requested it. In another, the foundation executive appeared to request special help finding a job for an associate, and he was assured that the right people knew of the potential employee.

The emails are not devastating, but they are damaging as Clinton struggles to boost her trustworthiness with voters. And such messages will continue to surface until the election.