Emails pitch Clinton campaign against Latinos, Catholics

Three women have accused Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, less than a week after a decade-old recording in which he brags about groping and kissing women surfaced. Mr. Trump had said it was only words and denied kissing or groping women against their will. Jessica Leeds, who sat next to Mr. Trump on a plane 35 years ago and Rachel Crooks, a receptionist who worked with a firm at Trump Towers in New York in 2005, have come out on the ordeal they allegedly went through at the hands of the candidate.

“He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere,” Ms. Leeds said. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” Ms. Crooks said of how Mr. Trump allegedly kissed her on the mouth immediately after they met on the elevator. The third woman, Natasha Stoynoff, is a writer with the People magazine and has alleged similar experience with Mr. Trump in 2005. Ms. Stoynoff met Mr. Trump for a story. There is a fourth one too, who chose to remain anonymous, but shared similar claims with a CNN anchor.

He is getting fodder

While the mainstream American media has cornered him over spiraling allegations of sexual abuse, Mr. Trump gets the fodder for his campaign from Wikileaks that is putting out hacked emails of several officials of Democratic presidential campaign.

“Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!,” Mr. Trump said in a tweet.

The leaked emails show discussions among her campaign staff, but two pieces hold out a threat to her social alliance. In one, campaign chief John Podesto writes a mail with the subject line “Needy Latinos and 1 easy call,” on a strategy to canvass the support of Democratic Latino leaders for Hillary Clinton.

Comments on Latinos

Mr. Trump’s public comments about Hispanics and Latinos have turned a majority among them against him. The Clinton campaign’s internal deliberations that refer to them in dismissive terms can dampen their enthusiasm for her.

The second email exchange that could threaten Ms. Clinton’s electoral coalition is on Catholics. Two aides to Ms. Clinton discuss the Catholic faith and conservatism in unflattering terms. “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they become evangelicals,” Jeniffer Palmieri, who is Clinton campaign’s communications director, apparently wrote in 2011. Ms. Palmieri said she “did not recognise the email,” but did not deny it outright. Many Catholics and evangelicals have expressed outrage at Mr. Trump’s sexual conduct, and the Trump campaign seized on the opportunity to turn them against Ms. Clinton.

Hillary asked to apologise

“We call on Hillary Clinton to apologise and to fire the staff who have engaged in this vicious anti-Catholic bigotry. All of this shows who these people are at the core,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said.

Meanwhile, Russia remains a dominant talking point in both campaigns. The Clinton campaign reiterated the Wikileaks was working in tandem with Russia to help Mr. Trump’s campaign. The latest Trump commercial on Ms. Clinton accused her of accepting money from foreign governments, criminals and Russians. Russian President Vladimir Putin has joined the issue, declaring that who hacked the emails was irrelevant. “Everyone is talking about 'who did it. But is it that important? The most important thing is what is inside this information,” Mr. Putin told a gathering in Moscow on Wednesday.