WikiLeaks series on deals involving Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of the Clintons and was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta also owns the Podesta Group with his brother Tony, a major lobbying firm and is the Chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based think tank.









An email from Gary Hirshberg, chairman and former president and CEO of Stonyfield Farm , to John Podesta on March 13, 2016, confirms why the lobbyists strongly opposed Bernie Sanders.





Hirshberg writes to a familiar person, as he was mentioned at the time as a possible 2008 Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, requesting Obama should not pass the Roberts bill because “if President Obama signs this terrible legislation that blatantly validates Bernie's entire campaign message about Wall Street running our government, this will give Bernie a huge boost and 10,000 -20,000 outraged citizens (who WILL turn up because they will be so angry at the President for preemption vt) will be marching on the Mall with Bernie as their keynote speaker.”





But Hirshberg does not stop here. In order to persuade Podesta about the seriousness of the matter, he claims that “It will be terrible to hand Sanders this advantage at such a fragile time when we really need to save our $$$ for the Trump fight.”





Full letter:









This short letter is particularly important because it shows that:



