Politico’s chief political correspondent, Glenn Thrush, asked Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta for approval on an article he was writing about the Clinton campaign.
In the leaked email released by Wikileaks, Thrush sent a message to Podesta asking for his approval on an article, adding, “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this” (explicit language warning):
Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains
to u
Please don't share or tell anyone I did this
Tell me if I fucked up anything
The final article, “Hillary’s big-money dilemma,” was published one day after Podesta wrote, “No problems here.”
Thrush asked Podesta to sign off on what became seven paragraphs that explicitly discuss his role in the funding aspect of the campaign.
Thrush’s article was written alongside Anna Palmer, a senior Washington correspondent for Politico who co-author’s Politico’s Playbook.
Update: Politico spokesperson Brad Dayspring defended Thrush’s actions—and his reputation—in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation:
Glenn has a self-deprecating sense of humor, one of the many blessings of being born and raised in Brooklyn. You know Alex, Oscar Wilde once pointed out that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously. That wisdom seems to apply here.
The bottom line is that Glenn got the chairman of the notoriously secretive Clinton campaign – who is not typically a font of detail – to confirm a bunch of inside information that he culled from other sources. I can speak with firsthand knowledge and experience that Glenn does this with everybody, on both sides of the aisle. Glenn is one of the top political reporters in the country, in no small part because he understands that it is his job is to get inside information, not appear perfect when someone illegally hacks emails.