With a Clinton campaign all but certain and a battle for top spots under way, it was only a matter of time until the damaging leaks and drama that plagued the 2008 Clinton presidential campaign returned.
Though prospective Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook has “been on ice,” it hasn’t stopped him, along with fellow Democratic operative and possible Clinton campaign manager Marlon Marshall, from sending emails to their private list serve, the “Mook Mafia.” And like with many things in Hillaryland, those emails were leaked.
And in true bipartisan fashion, these potential high-level Clinton aides tell their colleagues to “smite Republicans mafia-style.”
According to ABC News, the leaker is someone who “does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid” and demonstrates the “ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.” Bodes well for the upcoming campaign. So much for attempting to “squash much of the internal drama that plagued Clinton’s 2008 campaign.”
For the past five years, a prominent Democratic operative who is a leading contender to manage a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has maintained a private email listserv for friends and associates that carries a provocative name: the “Mook Mafia.”
The listserv, which one member said reaches more than 150 fellow campaign veterans, has been a means for Robby Mook and a close friend Marlon Marshall to stay connected with many of the operatives who would likely populate a Democratic presidential campaign in 2016. Mook and Marshall have both been mentioned as possible Hillary Clinton campaign managers.
Copies of a cache of the emails obtained by ABC News, and revealed publicly for the first time, show Mook and Marshall demonstrating an aggressive tone in rallying their friends behind political causes, in exchanges that are often self-mocking and sometimes border on being profane.
They include rallying cries to, in Mook’s words, “smite Republicans mafia-style,” and, to quote Marshall, “punish those voters.” Mook sometimes calls himself “Deacon” in the emails, while Marshall, now a senior White House aide, refers to himself as “Reverend” in many of the exchanges.
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The private emails were provided to ABC News by a Democrat on the listserv who has worked alongside Mook and Marshall on previous campaigns. The person who provided the emails is, like the vast majority of those on the listserv, supportive of Hillary Clinton, but does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid. They were provided on the condition of anonymity.
That the emails are emerging publicly reflects the ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.