in the final sprint of her campaign, troubled by an f.b.i. inquiry and narrowing polls, hillary clinton has held tightly to a handful of advisers who have spent their careers protecting her interests, defending her reputation, and at times sullying it <u+2014> and their own. and if she wins on tuesday, the most telling test of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s transition back to power will arrive quickly: after a campaign season often defined by voters<u+2019> weariness with and distrust of her, which old hands will <u+2014> or should <u+2014> follow her into the oval office? almost no top adviser has been left untouched by the two central firestorms of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s candidacy: the inquiry into her use of a private email server as secretary of state and the wikileaks hack of the email account of john d. podesta, her campaign chairman. the unvarnished view of infighting in the stolen documents is unlikely to bother mrs. clinton much, friends say. the political wisdom of importing excess baggage to the executive branch is another matter. huma abedin, the most visible of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s aides and among her most trusted, has become entangled in an f.b.i. investigation of her estranged husband, former representative anthony d. weiner, and his lewd messages. jake sullivan, mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign policy director, has faced questions over whether he mishandled classified information in the course of his round-the-clock email traffic with mrs. clinton at the state department, an issue that could shadow him as he moves into what is expected to be a key white house role, perhaps national security adviser or chief of staff. mr. podesta, who has been with the clintons since the 1990s and is a candidate for a cabinet post, has been singed by the publication of his private correspondence. so has neera tanden, a former domestic policy adviser to mrs. clinton, who took an acid pen to some of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s closest aides in emails to mr. podesta, her friend. mrs. clinton has plenty of other choices who have been unscathed by the email affairs, including mich<u+00e8>le a. flournoy, a front-runner for defense secretary, and william j. burns, who is on a short list for secretary of state. but allies have long viewed mrs. clinton<u+2019>s dependence on a small handful of aides with deep concern, lamenting the decades-old reluctance of her and her husband, former president bill clinton, to eject anyone from their political lives for good. and the aides closest to her often reinforce her worst instincts, friends say: a lack of transparency, circle-the-wagons defensiveness and paranoia about the news media. in her campaign, mrs. clinton has often strained to balance dueling impulses about her overlapping circles, maintaining a longstanding preference for keeping two layers of staff: a larger, more professionalized group and the smaller one she leans on most. sensitive to the perception that she would rely on the same voices that guided her in the senate and during her tumultuous 2008 presidential bid, mrs. clinton asked robby mook, 35 at the time, to manage her 2016 campaign , and she recruited a handful of former top aides to president obama. yet as voters weigh whether to return the clintons to the white house after 16 years away, mrs. clinton<u+2019>s bumpy march to election day has assumed a familiar feel <u+2014> colored by a generation of aides, baggage and aides<u+2019> baggage, all attaching to her in seeming perpetuity. william m. daley, a former chief of staff to mr. obama, said that with the clintons, two qualities would always predominate in personnel decisions: loyalty and competence. he added that mrs. clinton was unlikely to <u+201c>go out of the box<u+201d> in her hiring. <u+201c>everybody likes the sort of, <u+2018>oh gosh, you come in and then you get a fresh team and a whole new outlook.<u+2019> that<u+2019>s a crock of something,<u+201d> mr. daley said about white house transitions. <u+201c>you dance with the people you came to the dance with.<u+201d> indeed, when ms. abedin disappeared from the campaign trail <u+2014> relinquishing her perch, at least temporarily, as the ubiquitous protector at mrs. clinton<u+2019>s side <u+2014> her spot on the campaign plane went to a conspicuous replacement: philippe reines, a caustic, canny veteran of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s state department tenure. until that point, mr. reines had himself been sidelined with no formal campaign role, though he did play the republican nominee , donald j. trump, during mrs. clinton<u+2019>s debate preparations. in the wikileaks emails, top clinton staff members portrayed him as a disruptive force. <u+201c>one crazy dude,<u+201d> mr. podesta called mr. reines last year, in an exchange that appeared to focus on news coverage of his hostile interactions with reporters. mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign suggested that the controversies would have no bearing on her decision-making in a transition. <u+201c>if she wins, hillary clinton is going to fill the most critical positions with the most qualified people, period,<u+201d> said a spokesman, brian fallon. mr. reines, ms. abedin and mr. sullivan, the campaign<u+2019>s policy director, were mrs. clinton<u+2019>s closest aides at the state department, their bonds cemented over hundreds of hours of flying time during the 112 trips she made as secretary. friends and former colleagues of mrs. clinton say the three would be likely to play a similar role in the white house <u+2014> though of the three, only mr. sullivan seems a candidate for a major management job. each has been badly bruised by email-related disclosures in the last two years. mr. sullivan and ms. abedin, who corresponded with mrs. clinton on sensitive issues at the state department, were swept up in the f.b.i. investigation into whether mrs. clinton mishandled classified information. and even before the wikileaks releases, mr. reines turned over hundreds of emails with reporters in response to requests made under the freedom of information act. while mr. sullivan and ms. abedin were spared legal charges in the investigation of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s private email server, they each had to hire lawyers and endured months of uncertainty about whether they would lose their security clearances. friends of mrs. clinton express deep frustration with ms. abedin and say they wish mrs. clinton would distance herself from her and mr. weiner. but they expect that mrs. clinton<u+2019>s instinct will be to protect her. several predicted that mrs. clinton would find a place for ms. abedin in the white house, perhaps as a senior adviser with an undefined but wide-ranging portfolio, similar to the role valerie b. jarrett has played in the obama white house. for all their problems, the aides bring valuable skills. at the state department, ms. abedin and mr. reines organized mrs. clinton<u+2019>s foreign trips, which generated some of the most favorable news coverage of her career. mr. sullivan, in particular, became indispensable as a policy adviser, a role that helps explain why he sent and received so many of those sensitive emails at the state department, where he served as both deputy chief of staff and head of the policy planning department. still, if she is elected, mrs. clinton is expected to supplement her closest aides with a cadre of professional advisers, similar to those who occupy senior posts in her campaign. how these people will mesh with the inner circle is not clear. while mr. trump<u+2019>s chaotic bid for the presidency has often served to overshadow potential management issues on mrs. clinton<u+2019>s team, the operation had for most of the year appeared relatively drama-free <u+2014> at least compared with 2008. but the publication of private emails from the hacked account of mr. podesta changed that, even as the campaign sought to remind the public of the trove<u+2019>s origins <u+2014> a breach attributed to russian interference <u+2014> not its contents. still, the documents exposed a predictable, if ugly, trail of personal slights and backbiting that could leave mrs. clinton<u+2019>s staff even more distrustful. already, some in mrs. clinton<u+2019>s inner circle have said that the acerbic comments of ms. tanden, a former top policy adviser to mrs. clinton who is close to mr. podesta, are enough to disqualify her from a white house post. (among the most memorable entries, ms. tanden joked that whoever advised mrs. clinton to use a private email server as secretary of state should be <u+201c>drawn and quartered,<u+201d> laying the blame at the feet of cheryl d. mills, a longtime clinton adviser and lawyer.) <u+201c>in this business, you have to develop a tough skin, and you can<u+2019>t isolate people who might not say what you want to hear,<u+201d> said melanne verveer, mrs. clinton<u+2019>s chief of staff when she was first lady. <u+201c>i wouldn<u+2019>t be surprised if some of these people go in.<u+201d> at the same time, ms. verveer said she expected mrs. clinton to reach out to people she did not know well to fill certain positions. <u+201c>you need to strike a balance,<u+201d> she said. much will depend on mrs. clinton<u+2019>s choice of chief of staff. a professional manager like ron klain, who has worked for both mr. obama and former vice president al gore, would reassure many in mrs. clinton<u+2019>s orbit. as one friend pointed out, bill clinton chose a businessman and childhood friend from arkansas, thomas f. mclarty, as his first chief of staff, with disappointing results. mrs. clinton has a history of strong-willed chiefs of staff, all of them women, including maggie williams and ms. verveer in the white house, and ms. mills at the state department. but even ms. mills, a diamond-hard lawyer who defended mr. clinton during his impeachment trial, at a minimum failed to deter mrs. clinton from the decision to use a personal email address for government business. <u+201c>obviously, you need people you fully trust to have your back,<u+201d> said lissa muscatine, a former chief speechwriter for mrs. clinton. <u+201c>but that doesn<u+2019>t mean you want yes women and yes men.<u+201d> there is one other difference between the hillary clinton of the 1990s and today<u+2019>s. as first lady, she surrounded herself with contemporaries: women like ms. williams and ms. verveer, who had substantial outside experience before working for her. now, at 69, mrs. clinton is a generation older than most of her aides. some have worked almost exclusively for her, already confronting a lifetime of political combat in their young careers. mr. daley suggested that having a few battle scars was not a bad thing <u+2014> to a point. <u+201c>everybody who<u+2019>s been around for years has baggage,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>some have more than others.<u+201d> steve eder, amy chozick and maggie haberman contributed reporting. find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via facebook , twitter and the morning briefing newsletter . a version of this article appears in print on november 6, 2016, on page a1 of the new york edition with the headline: if clinton moves to oval office, aides<u+2019> baggage may be heavy. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
if hillary clinton moves to oval office, aides<u+2019> baggage may be heavy
matt flegenheimer mark landler