Podesta served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton and is chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington, DC-based think tank. He also founded a lobbying firm with his brother.

Wikileaks on Friday released more than 2,000 emails from Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta.

The emails go back to 2007 and up to March 2016.

The emails appeared to contain excerpts from Clinton’s closed-door paid speeches — a major subject of contention during the Democratic primary — for the first time.

The speech transcripts include quotes from Clinton about her distance from middle-class life (“I’m kind of far removed”); her vision of strategic governing (“you need both a public and a private position”); and her views on trade, health care, and Wall Street.

Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin said the campaign would not be confirming the authenticity of any of the emails made public on Friday. But administration officials, he added, have “removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy.”



US officials have also warned that Russia could be “doctoring” hacked emails, including those stolen this summer from the Democratic National Committee.

Still, the document dump was likely to bolster a common primary challenge by Sen. Bernie Sanders to release transcripts of the speeches, which were delivered to major firms like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, and subsequently picked up by Donald Trump as a campaign refrain.

