New York Times Hires Glenn Thrush After Wikileaks Humiliation

glenn-thrush
YouTube / PBS NewsHour
Ezra Dulis

The New York Times has hired Politico‘s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush, after Wikileaks outed chummy and even subservient emails from Thrush to Democratic operatives in the 2016 election cycle.

Thrush became the face of Democratic collusion with journalists during the 2016 campaign, after emails revealed by Wikileaks showed him asking Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta for approval on language before publishing a story about the campaign’s fundraising strategy. Breitbart News reported at the time:

The exchange between Thrush and Podesta was revealed by Wikileaks (Podesta Email 12681). In the email, Thrush sends several paragraphs about Hillary’s fundraising operation and leads into the article by admitting, “Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u.” After asking Podesta not to “share or tell anyone I did this,” Thrush seeks Podesta’s approval on the article by saying, “Tell me if I fucked up anything.”

…

The article never directly quotes Podesta or makes mention that one of the authors had spoken with Podesta. Instead, it cites “people close to the campaign” for the information about Podesta that Podesta provided.

After this email thread came to light, Thrush angrily defended himself, tweeting in all caps, “I DO THIS WITH EVERYBODY.”

Though Thrush insists he has a clear conscience, his own request to Podesta betrays him: “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this,” he wrote.

Thrush was also seen on the RSVP list for an off-the-record social gathering with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at the home of Joel Benenson, the chief strategist of Clinton’s campaign, days before her official 2016 announcement. He later told CNN he attended that event and a dinner at the home of John Podesta the same weekend. “I was at both of those events, and I am now completely in the tank,” he joked to Brian Stelter.

“I think this is kind of a fake story… This is not necessarily about them trying to woo us,” Thrush said in response to concerns from then-Business Insider reporter Hunter Walker.

The New York Times also had its share of embarrassments from Wikileaks’ “Podesta Emails”:

• The paper provided interview questions to Bill Clinton before a live Q&A with columnist Nicholas Kristof.
• The campaign dictated what Mark Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for the Times‘ magazine, could and could not print from an interview with Secretary Clinton.
• Clinton staffers said that political reporter Amy Chozick privately praised Hillary, “may as well have been sitting in her lap” at a private awards ceremony, and alerted the campaign that she was working on a story that could undermine a colleague’s investigative report based on the book Clinton Cash — authored by Peter Schweizer, a Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News.

Jokes about Thrush’s infamous “hack” email poured in after Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post first reported the hire:

Five minutes after announcing his move to the Times, Thrush sent a shoutout to a “friend” and veteran of the Clinton campaign:

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