Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat representing Texas’s 30th Congressional District and an early supporter of Hillary Clinton, told supporters in a district meeting something interesting…
She told them, based on what she claims to be frequent phone conversations with the candidate, that Clinton’s current opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership – which represented such a dramatic reversal of her earlier enthusiasm for it as the “gold standard” of trade agreements – was only to get “labor off her back” until after the election.
The labor leaders who heard about this shared their… concerns with Clinton’s Labor Outreach Director Nikki Budzinski. Budzinski then prepared a memo for our old friend John Podesta to equip him for a meeting with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Then that horrible Julian Assange had to come along and… well, you can guess the rest.
—–
From:mfisher@hillaryclinton.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2015-11-02 23:35
Subject: MEMO re: Trumka Mtg from NikkiJohn- Nikki pulled together a great memo for your meeting with Trumka tomorrow. Attached! Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks, Milia
http://wikileaks.com/podesta-emails/emailid/41714
For anyone reluctant to the open the Wikileaks .docx copy of the memo, I have put a copy on Google Drive here:
http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Gty6AJsT83RkpsNDF1ZklZRGM/view?usp=sharing
The money quote:
* Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
I have received four calls from labor about a district meeting that Congresswoman Johnson (a HRC public supporter) held in Dallas, Texas where she discussed TPP. She claimed in the meeting that she speaks with HRC 2-3 times a week and that she was told by the Secretary that the only reason she opposes TPP is to get “labor off her back” and that once she is elected President she will reverse position. I have worked with our Western Political Director Jessica Meija, and she has connected with the Congresswoman’s COS to clarify the inaccuracy of what she said and push back on her comments. This was not helpful with labor.
We can only wonder what the “inaccuracy” consists of.
Perhaps she didn’t say “get labor off my back”. Perhaps she said “keep labor quiet”.