Hillary Clinton’s campaign knew about at least one of Donald Trump’s derogatory statements about ex-Miss Universe Alicia Machado’s weight gain nine months before the Democrat threw a spotlight on them at the first presidential race.
An opposition research file on Trump that was compiled for Clinton’s campaign last year includes a reference to the Venezuelan-born beauty queen, an email stolen from John Podesta’s account revealed.
Trump was quoted as having said on CBS’ ‘The Morning’ in 1997: ‘She weighed 118 pounds, or 117 pounds, and she went up to 160 or 170. So this is somebody that likes to eat.’
Machado comes up Page 31 of the document in a section with the label ‘Trump Has Devalued And Demeaned Women Repeatedly Throughout His Career.’ A subsection on Machado leads with ‘Trump On Miss Universe Pageant Winner.’
Her first name is spelled incorrectly in a transcript of The Morning interview Trump did and her last name is not printed at all.
The dossier makes no mention of Trump calling her ‘Miss Housekeeping’ and Miss Piggy.’
The attack line indicates that Clinton’s team knew about Machado a long time before the candidate made an example of her in a Sept. 26 general election debate, however.
Research director Tony Carrk emailed Podesta the file on Dec. 21, 2015.
Carrk also sent Podesta dirt on Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They were the only other Republican candidates Clinton’s team appears to have been seriously looking at in the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump was added to the campaign’s watchlist on Sept. 15, 2015, Fox News discovered. He replaced Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
He came back up in February after coming in second in Iowa, and winning the New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses.
‘Who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decide,’ strategist Joel Johnson said to communications director Jennifer Palmieri in an email.
Machado, the winner of the 1996 Miss Universe pageant, endorsed Clinton in June as the Democratic primary came to a close.
In September, Clinton said of Trump the Hofstra University debate. ‘One of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest.
‘He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman “Miss Piggy.” Then he called her “Miss Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.’
A stunned Trump was reduced to saying to her, ‘Where did you find this?’
After Clinton brought Machado into the presidential fold, the Democratic White House candidate’s campaign set up interviews with her, employing her as a surrogate.
Seedy details about Machado’s past soon poured out, including a sex scene from a Spanish reality TV show and a threat to kill a federal judge.
Within days of the debate her publicist told DailyMail.com she would no longer be discussing Trump in interviews.
Clinton’s campaign never said when it first made contact with Machado. It did not say when Clinton first spoke to her, either, despite multiple requests from reporters for that information, and whether it knew about her indiscretions.
Just before Machado went back into the shadows she and Clinton talked on the phone, the White House candidate’s campaign said, and the former first lady thanked her for having the ‘courage’ to speak out about Trump’s misogyny.