WASHINGTON • In the midst of a State Department inspector general’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill left a voicemail for Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that said she “had some info” on the inspector general.
That “info” turned out to be that one of the top lieutenants at the office of inspector general — ostensibly an independent oversight of State — had formerly worked for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
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Democrats – although not McCaskill - later publicly attacked that aide, Emilia DiSanto, as an example of what they saw was a partisan investigation of Clinton and her use of a private email server.
In May of this year, the Inspector General issued a highly critical report of Clinton’s handling of emails and debunking claims that Clinton had made, including that previous secretaries of state had done essentially the same thing with their emails that she had.
The revelation of McCaskill’s contact with Podesta came in the latest Wikileaks dump of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign. Citing reporting on U.S. intelligence, Clinton and her allies have suggested that the leaks are likely the work of the Russian government and that their release is an attempt to influence the presidential election in two weeks.
But irrespective of that claim, the leaks have also exposed the political calculations of Clinton's inner circle on some of the biggest controversies dogging her and her campaign.
McCaskill acknowledged Tuesday that the voice mail message in the latest Wikileaks revelations is authentic. She defended it as a pushback, using publicly available information, on what she saw as a “partisan witch hunt” that was after Clinton.
A transcript of her voicemail was in an email to Podesta from a Clinton aide who had gone through messages left on Podesta’s phone on Oct. 5-6 of last year.
Among others calling Podesta in that time period were New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who, amid rising tensions between Clinton and her chief primary challenger. Sen. Bernie Sanders, was offering to help Clinton in New York.
"I have an idea that I want to do here in NY that I think could work nicely for Hillary," Cuomo said.
McCaskill's voicemail arrived on the evening of Oct. 5. Here is what it said, according to the email transcript:
“*Claire McCaskill*> Give me a call back at your convenient (sic) on my cell or at home. Got some> info about the state department IG. You guys should digest and figure out> what if anything we can do.> Yesterday at 8:58 pm>”
It then went on to list McCaskill’s home and cell number.
Labombard said Tuesday his boss changed her numbers "after a barrage of abusive calls and text messages from (Donald) Trump supporters" after Wikileaks published the numbers.
McCaskill and Podesta were unable to connect right after the email, and when she did “revisit” her offer sometime later, “it had already been brought up publicly by others,” McCaskill’s communications director John LaBombard said Tuesday.
Indeed, six weeks after McCaskill’s voice mail to Podesta, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was alleging that DiSanto was the source of leaks to Republican senators about Huma Abedin, a top aide to Clinton. For months, Grassley – the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee – had questioned Abedin’s work as a “special government employee,” in which she worked for the State Department and as an outside consultant simultaneously. Republicans said that opened conflict of interest doors.
DiSanto at the time issued a statement saying that Reid’s allegations were “utterly false” and that she had never been a source for her former boss. But in an attempt to discredit the IG report on Clinton emails when it was still being prepared, Democrats kept trying to attack it as partisan, citing DiSanto by name.
On Tuesday, asked about the voicemail, McCaskill issued the following statement through LaBombard:
"At a time when partisan witch hunts aimed at Hillary were at an all-time high, and after repeated leaks from those investigations, I wanted the campaign to know I had just learned a high-ranking person in the State Department IG's office was a former Republican staffer for Senator Grassley - information that was publicly available, and indeed became a point of public discussion within weeks."
A spokeswoman for Grassley also referenced a “partisan witch hunt," but one directed by Democrats and with an unclear target of either Grassley or the State Department Office of Inspector General.
"Regardless, Senator Grassley conducted oversight of the State Department the way he has with dozens of agencies on hundreds of topics, beginning with President Reagan’s excessive defense spending," said spokeswoman Jill Gerber. "His oversight is non-partisan with good government and taxpayer interests in mind. He expects the same from inspectors general and generally finds that to be the case."
Gerber also denied that Grassley’s former staffer had not been the confidential source of information about a Clinton staff member. "Several House and Senate staffers knew the identity of that source because they met with the source," Gerber said. "All of these questions could have been answered easily and up front without a behind-the-scenes whisper campaign.”
This latest Wikileaks revelations show McCaskill’s deep involvement with the Clinton campaign. She had endorsed President Barack Obama over Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, but was among the first to come out in support of Clinton in this year’s election. She has been a frequent Clinton surrogate on political talk TV for the past year.
Indeed, three days after her voicemail to Podesta, McCaskill had a testy exchange with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about Clinton’s changed position on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Clinton had described the trade deal as a “gold standard” when the Obama administration was negotiating it, but amid Democratic presidential primary opposition from independent Bernie Sanders, Clinton withdrew her support.
“Everybody evolves on positions,” McCaskill said, saying that describing Clinton as “unprincipled or weak” because she had changed on TPP was “totally wrong.”
Chuck Raasch • 202-298-6880
@craasch on Twitter
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