A new email released in Wikileaks shows that Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief proposed to a U.S. official the names of two prominent Greek Americans who could convince Alexis Tsipras to accept the reforms proposed by Greece’s creditors in July 2015.
Specifically, the email was sent by Jeffrey Zients — Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy — to John Podesta, chief of the Hillary Clinton election campaign, as an answer to Podesta proposing two persons who could convince the Greek Prime Minister to accept the creditors’ proposed bailout program.
Podesta proposed to Zients Phil Angelides and Michael Dukakis as two prominent Greek Americans who could influence Tsipras in deciding to sign the bailout deal of July 2015.
Angelides was California State Treasurer and former Democratic nominee for Governor of California. Dukakis is former Governor of Massachusetts and former Democratic nominee for U.S. President.
Willingness to assist
The two men had communicated with Tsipras and expressed their willingness to assist any way they could and mobilized the Greek American community.
Read the email below as posted on Wikileaks:
From:jeffrey_d_zients@who.eop.gov To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2015-07-08 08:54 Subject: Greece
John – hope you’re well. Thanks for Greece suggestions. Spoke to Phil Angelides and Mike Dukakis reached out. Brief readouts below. Miss you here – look forward to catching up soon. JZ
Angelides is not close with Tsipras, but noted that Tsipras visited with him and other prominent Greek-Americans during a trip to the US when he was opposition leader, and they’ve kept in touch intermittently since. He is talking with Jamie Galbraith, a college classmate who he’s known for about 40 years, this evening about how they might help reinforce our Plan A messaging to Tsipras-namely, that while Tsipras has his political imperatives domestically so too does Merkel and he needs to come forward with a credible reform plan. Angelides said in the event of an exit, he wanted to be helpful and offered to help mobilize the Greek-American community to provide assistance.
Dukakis offered to mobilize Greek-American community for whatever purpose. Noted he doesn’t know of anyone who has strong ties to Tsipras directly. I emphasized our focus now is on Plan A of getting a deal done, and for him to dig deep into networks and think of anyone who can help move Tsipras. In longer-run, he had idea of lending American expertise to help Greece overcome skepticism about ability to implement reforms (e.g. former IRS to help them collect taxes). We agreed to stay in touch.
Read more here.
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