PRESIDENTIAL RACE | Hacked emails reveal Clinton pushed for Morocco charity meeting

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hacked emails reveal internal disagreement among top aides to Hillary Clinton about her determination to hold a Clinton Foundation summit in Morocco that later drew attention over its reliance on large financial pledges from foreign governments.

Clinton aide Huma Abedin bluntly wrote in the January 2015 email that “if HRC was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter” and then warned: “She created this mess and she knows it.”

It was an uncharacteristic remark from a confidante known for her abiding loyalty to Clinton over the years.

The hacked email was among more than 4,000 messages posted Thursday on the website of the WikiLeaks organization. The emails were stolen from the accounts of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.

In Wednesday’s final presidential debate, Donald Trump said he doubted the conclusion by U.S. intelligence officials that the Russian government is behind a string of recent targeted cyberattacks and subsequent leaks to influence the election. Clinton sharply criticized the Republican nominee for using the stolen emails to attack her, as well as a past statement encouraging hackers to leak more.

Podesta has warned that some emails may have been edited or altered by the hackers prior to release, though the Clinton campaign has yet to publicly identify an instance of that happening.

In her email, Abedin told Podesta and current Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook that the lavish May 2015 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative was based on a $12 million pledge from Moroccan King Mohammed VI to host the event.

“The King has personally committed approx. $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting,” Abedin wrote.

Clinton Foundation records do not show any direct pledge of funding from the king or government of Morocco to the charity. Commitments to the charity’s CGI program are agreements only to aid the program’s international projects, not to directly fund the Clinton Foundation itself.

Clinton was no longer serving as secretary of State at the time of the meeting in Marrakesh. Sponsor donations have sometimes been used to defray the costs of meetings for CGI, the foundation’s program of worldwide charity and development projects.