Reporter Took Orders from Hillary Clinton’s Staff, Down to Specific Adjective

A newly revealed email exchange shows a reporter for a major political magazine agreeing to use the exact word suggested by a member of Hillary’s staff to write positive coverage of her speech.

The email exchange between the Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder and Hillary Clinton’s aide at the State Department, Philippe Reines, took place in 2009. It was published Tuesday by Gawker.

Ambinder wrote to Reines asking for an advance copy of a speech Hillary was set to deliver to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Reines replied that he would make the speech available on three conditions:

1) You in your own voice describe them as “muscular”

2) You note that a look at the CFR seating plan shows that all the envoys — from Holbrooke to Mitchell to Ross — will be arrayed in front of her, which in your own clever way you can say certainly not a coincidence and meant to convey something

3) You don’t say you were blackmailed!

Ambinder immediately responded, “got it.”

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