If you're wondering how to get a job in a Hillary Clinton White House, start by reading campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails.

From a billionaire plugging a federal official for a cabinet appointment to Podesta himself plugging the daughter of a friend for an internship, the trove of Podesta’s correspondence posted by WikiLeaks is a portrait of Washington insiderism, showing powerful people turning into supplicants using connections and flattery.


A new president has 4,000 political appointments to dole out. And as Podesta went from running a think tank to serving as a counselor to Barack Obama to joining the Clinton campaign, everybody from high-ranking officials to college undergraduates jockeyed to get themselves or their friends onto his radar.

One tip: Have someone well-connected float your name.

CNN founder Ted Turner wrote to Podesta in 2008 to recommend John Berry, a Clinton administration Interior official, for Interior Secretary. Turner suggested that as “the nation’s largest private landowner,” he was qualified to weigh in on the choice. One of Podesta's aides responded, saying, "John asked me to email you back and say he's a big Berry fan too, and he's in the mix …"

That wasn’t enough to get Berry the cabinet appointment, but all ended well for him. He’s now the U.S. ambassador to Australia.

Leveraging your connections can work even if you’re not at the cabinet-secretary level. Reggie Govan, chief counsel at the Federal Aviation Administration, emailed Podesta on behalf of his godson, an undergraduate at Yale seeking a job on the campaign. "His keen interest and experience in behavioral sciences, data/marketing and finance offsets his lack of prior political experience," he wrote. Podesta responded the next day, copying the proper contacts on the Clinton team.

In 2014 Podesta himself appeared to put in a good word with his former Center for American Progress colleagues on behalf of the daughter of a friend who had recently applied to an internship at the think tank. She ended up getting the internship, according to the email.

Another common tactic: Flattery.

"Congrats on doing an amazing job for Barack Obama during the last year or so. The Dems will be in much better shape as we head into the 2016 race because of your efforts,” Connecticut attorney Christine Niedermeier wrote in an email to Podesta last year. She went on to helpfully list four different Clinton campaign jobs she would be suited for.

Still, having connections doesn’t necessarily get you a lot of help from Podesta. When Jim Lyons, the husband of long-time Barack Obama and Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri, asked Podesta if he could help with Obama's presidential transition operation in 2008, Podesta forwarded the email to some of the campaign's aides and asked simply, "Want him?"

Podesta has been on both sides of this game. As president of the Center for American Progress before he joined the Obama administration, he told Obama campaign aides they should consider billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer for Energy secretary, a contention he repeated again in Obama's second term. Steyer, who formally endorsed Clinton in June, is now running a super PAC that is trying to make climate change a major issue in the election.

In the same 2008 email chain in which he mentioned Steyer, Podesta poo-pooed some of the names that Obama's aides had come up with for Energy secretary. One of the names was Jonathan Pershing, who at that time had experience working at the State Department and the International Energy Agency. Pershing should be an assistant secretary at the Energy Department, "not higher," Podesta wrote. Pershing went on to serve in a top role at the Energy Department, and he is now the State Department's special envoy for climate change.

Not everyone goes directly to Podesta. The emails describe how an aide to liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered a list of potential nominees to Dan Schwerin, a speechwriter, following up on an earlier meeting between Clinton and Warren.

Some go higher up the chain. An earlier release of Clinton’s own emails contained a 2012 exchange with then-Commodity Futures Trading Commission head Gary Gensler. “If we might be able to find a moment to chat, I would love to share my thoughts on possible new challenges and opportunities within the Administration,” he wrote. Apparently getting no response, he sent more emails. Then he learned she had fallen and suffered a concussion.

“My mom always recommended a bit of chicken noodle soup,” the former Goldman Sachs banker wrote. “And please don't worry about connecting with me on the work matters until you are really up to it.”

Gensler is now chief financial officer of Clinton’s campaign.

The Clinton campaign has not confirmed the authenticity of individual emails released by WikiLeaks, and it has called the organization, "nothing but a propaganda arm of the Kremlin with a political agenda doing Putin's dirty work to help elect Donald Trump."