The new revelation of Bill Clinton’s behind-the-scenes power-brokering was revealed in hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account. | Getty Wiki hack reveals Bill Clinton’s role in campaign He’s eager to dive in but her staff worries about mistakes and distractions.

Ahead of the Nevada caucuses last February, Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives leaned on Bill Clinton to appeal to casino mogul Steve Wynn and James Murren, chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International, with a personal request.

Bill Clinton, according to emails posted on WikiLeaks, was instructed to personally ask Wynn and Murren to extend paid hours at their properties for casino workers, provide boxed lunches, as well as greater flexibility for employees who wanted to participate in the caucuses.


The goal was to increase turnout by making it easier to participate in the caucuses at the six casino sites— Clinton’s campaign had expressed concern that low-wage workers, whose support it expected, would not be able to participate in the time-consuming caucus process if their employers weren’t flexible.

“These precincts combine to be 1% of delegates, so it's an important piece of work!” campaign manager Robby Mook wrote in an email to Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, explaining the urgency of the request. Flournoy reported back that Clinton had spoken to Murren, who was on board with the plan.

Hillary Clinton ultimately swept all six casino sites in the Nevada caucus, helping her to win the crucial Western firewall state by 5 percentage points and stabilize her campaign against Bernie Sanders.

The new revelation of Bill Clinton’s behind-the-scenes power-brokering was revealed in hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account, which have been posted on WikiLeaks. The site has hinted it plans to publish 50,000 emails obtained from Podesta’s personal account. The Clinton campaign has not confirmed the authenticity of the emails, but Podesta said the FBI is investigating a criminal hack of his account.

And Bill Clinton's role ahead of the Nevada caucuses was one example, revealed in the emails, of the backstage role he has played this cycle — a major resource for the campaign but also one that top Brooklyn operatives have kept a wary eye on during his public events.

Bill Clinton, his aides have often said, has a full-time job running his Foundation, and his attitude toward his wife’s campaign has been that he is simply happy to do anything he is asked.

The emails show how Clinton’s Brooklyn team utilized the former president, and how he sometimes wanted information even about the minutiae of the campaign.

According to the emails, Bill Clinton blocked off days of his schedule last year to join his wife’s debate prep sessions ahead of the first primary debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 15.

And he often had a heavy hand in editing and reorganizing some of Hillary Clinton's major speeches. On Feb. 26, for instance, Clinton’s chief speechwriter, Dan Schwerin, wrote to campaign consultant Mandy Grunwald regarding a major speech the former secretary of state was planning to deliver in Flint, Michigan, on Super Tuesday.

“WJC asked that we flip two big sections of the speech so the Moms and Flint move toward the end and the affirmative agenda moves toward the front,” he wrote. “I think it probably works. Can you take a quick look before I shoot over to HRC?”

Ahead of Clinton’s appearance at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa last year, a major political event, Bill Clinton, according to emails among Clinton’s aides, proposed inserting a joking reference to the email controversy into Hillary Clinton’s speech.

“You all think wjc's joke is too much about her kinda wishing after hour 8 that Bernie would come through the door with his damn email line ..,?” campaign consultant Jim Margolis wrote to the campaign’s top operatives discussing the speech. The joke was a reference to the 11-hour Benghazi hearing Clinton had recently survived. “I think it's funny and confident and the room would love it,” Margolis said. (The campaign ultimately nixed the email joke. “Email jokes in Iowa usually end up badly and don't we want to move on?” Podesta said.)

Podesta also saw Bill Clinton as a potential asset in undercutting some of the GOP candidates early on. In March 2015, a month before Hillary Clinton officially announced her campaign, Podesta encouraged Bill Clinton’s office to participate in a joint event on immigration with former President George W. Bush. “If they are a mutual admiration society for immigration reform and the dignity of all including the undocumented, it's a killer for Jeb,” Podesta said. “Maybe we could throw in Pope Francis remote.”

Bill Clinton, according to the emails, would also call his wife’s top campaign operatives for updates on small matters, like the online merchandise store that sells T-shirts, lawn signs and "H" branded shot glasses.

“WJC called me about merchandise,” Mook wrote in an email on Oct. 3, 2015. “Got into a bigger conversation about fundraising. He said he's willing to put in a lot more time raising for Q4.”

The famously penny-pinching Mook reported that the former president was “particularly willing to do local events on the east coast — PA, NJ, MA, etc. — where he can drive and we don't have to pay for a plane.”

When it came to his public events, there was sometimes more concern from Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Ahead of Bill Clinton's first scheduled public appearance on the trail in Iowa last year, campaign vice chair Huma Abedin communicated to her colleagues that Hillary Clinton “feels v strongly that they need to campaign together” in Iowa ahead of the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner — and that it was “weird for WJC to do alone.” On Oct. 28 of last year, Bill and Hillary Clinton appeared jointly at a pre-dinner rally headlined by Katy Perry.

If Bill Clinton was an unalloyed asset and fundraising machine behind the scenes, his wife’s aides had some anxiety about his appearances on the stump. Aides to Hillary and Bill Clinton appeared to be on high alert for any potential eruptions of anger or gaffes by the former president ahead of the New Hampshire primary earlier this year.

Aware of the former president’s growing frustrations with the rising popularity of Sanders’ progressive challenge, Clinton’s campaign operatives were kept up to date in real time as Bill Clinton stumped across New Hampshire in January — on the lookout for potential pitfalls that could receive outsized attention and complicate his wife’s message. At the time, Sanders had been criticizing Bill Clinton for Wall Street deregulation and welfare reform.

“WJC just told an anecdote about somebody making $110k per year with student loans as an example of someone who would struggle,” Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin flagged for a group of aides on Jan. 4. “Could see that being used to say he's out of touch.”

“Thanks for flagging, Josh,” communications director Jennifer Palmieri responded. “Think it’s fine.”

It was a difficult period in the race for Clinton’s campaign, and especially for the candidate’s husband, who was deeply invested in trying to win back the state that once crowned him “the Comeback Kid.”

“He’s losing it bad today,” Flournoy wrote to Podesta in an email a day before the New Hampshire primary, where Sanders ultimately walloped Clinton by 20 points. “If you’re in NH please see if you can talk to him.”

But at least during his day on the trail in January, Bill Clinton kept up a good face for his wife. Meeting voters at the Puritan Backroom in Manchester, Bill Clinton met “a woman who is celebrating her 92nd birthday today. I'd note that she's met a couple of Presidents now and wasn't shy about telling folks here that WJC is amongst her favorites,” his spokesman, Angel Urena, reported back to Brooklyn HQ in real time.

At the end of the day, Urena signed off, sounding relieved: “We're headed to the airport. Fair to say we didn't break anything.”