in one note, neera tanden groused that whoever had let hillary clinton use a private email address for her state department correspondence should be <u+201c>drawn and quartered.<u+201d> in another, she called for mrs. clinton to stop stalling on whether she opposed the keystone pipeline, worrying that <u+201c>dodging another issue<u+201d> would hurt her in the democratic primaries. and when mrs. clinton<u+2019>s team dallied over whether to publicly criticize david brock, a longtime ally, for demanding senator bernie sanders<u+2019>s medical records, ms. tanden was blunt. <u+201c>hillary. god,<u+201d> ms. tanden wrote. <u+201c>her instincts are suboptimal.<u+201d> ms. tanden, 46, a longtime policy adviser to mrs. clinton, is well known on twitter and cable news for her peppery defenses of mrs. clinton and her sarcastic takedowns of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s perceived adversaries. but her private communications with some of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign aides, stolen from campaign chairman john d. podesta and published over the last month by the activist group wikileaks , have revealed another side. in a sphere encrusted with suck-ups, soothers, and self-puffery, ms. tanden has emerged as a loyal but insistent straight-talker and acute assessor of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s stubbornness and weaknesses. <u+201c>what the emails show is somebody who is passionately invested in hillary clinton giving the best possible candid advice she can to advance her electoral prospects,<u+201d> said howard wolfson, a former clinton aide and a close friend of ms. tanden<u+2019>s. he added, <u+201c>and giving it privately.<u+201d> the clinton campaign declined to comment on the emails, instead saying that the hack was a product of the russian government<u+2019>s meddling in the election to benefit donald j. trump, the republican nominee. but as dozens of her stolen messages have gone public, ms. tanden<u+2019>s private and profanity-laced commentary has made her something of a cult hero for an unlikely group: trump supporters. on a reddit page called <u+201c> the_donald ,<u+201d> where trump backers dissect the hacked email releases and post their findings, ms. tanden has garnered a slew of unwanted praise. one trump fan called for a neera tanden fan club. another dubbed her <u+201c>nofilterneera.<u+201d> most of the stolen emails were exchanges between her and mr. podesta, her former boss at the center for american progress, a liberal think tank that ms. tanden now leads. mr. podesta is a longtime friend, and ms. tanden<u+2019>s tone is often that of a colleague grousing in the break room. in the exchanges, ms. tanden can be fiercely protective of mrs. clinton. when jennifer palmieri, communications director of the clinton campaign, wrote a sharply worded letter raising concerns about coverage of mrs. clinton in the new york times, ms. tanden cheered. the letter <u+201c>is great,<u+201d> she wrote to mr. podesta <u+2014> adding a sentence laced with profanities directed at the newspaper. but she could also be direct about other members of clintonworld and the candidate herself. when news media reports began identifying potential members of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign team last year, ms. tanden warned of griping among democrats about racial and gender balance among mrs. clinton<u+2019>s staff picks. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m not the diversity police but there is grumbling on the 4 white boys running next presidential cycle,<u+201d> she wrote in january 2015. <u+201c>so i recommend rolling out some people who look like the rest of america soon!<u+201d> in may 2015, new york city<u+2019>s mayor, bill de blasio, emailed ms. tanden and mr. podesta to let them know that he was scheduled to appear on the msnbc show <u+201c>morning joe<u+201d> and would likely offer his opinion of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s policy vision. <u+201c>i find him a bit insufferable,<u+201d> ms. tanden wrote to mr. podesta . (the mayor was frozen out over the ensuing months and denied a prime speaking slot at the democratic convention this summer.) ms. tanden<u+2019>s internal critiques may have damaged her relationships with other members of the concentric clinton circles, and in the immutable fashion of washington, she seems more likely to be punished than rewarded for her honesty. asked about the wikileaks releases, ms. tanden said in an email that while she would not authenticate any of the messages, their leaking had been <u+201c>a profoundly painful experience.<u+201d> <u+201c>having been a bit beaten up in the media over the last month myself, i have even greater appreciation for someone who has weathered it for 20 years,<u+201d> ms. tanden said of mrs. clinton, calling her a <u+201c>role model.<u+201d> she added, <u+201c>my personal efforts have been to help her be successful.<u+201d> philip j. crowley, a former clinton aide at the state department who resigned in 2011 after publicly criticizing the department of defense for its treatment of a soldier accused of classified leaks, said he believed ms. tanden would still be welcome in mrs. clinton<u+2019>s inner sanctum. <u+201c>will there have to be some conversations and a couple of beers and a mea culpa afterwards?<u+201d> mr. crowley said. <u+201c>sure there will. but those who are experienced in the ways of washington know how to work this.<u+201d> some of ms. tanden<u+2019>s sharpest internal criticisms concerned mrs. clinton<u+2019>s private email account, which prompted a federal investigation that is plaguing mrs. clinton anew. on friday, the federal bureau of investigation said it had uncovered a new trove of emails after seizing an electronic device shared by anthony d. weiner and his estranged wife, huma abedin, a top aide to mrs. clinton. when ms. tanden first saw news reports about the private account in march 2015, she exchanged a series of emails with mr. podesta bemoaning how they had gotten into such a situation in the first place. she singled out other aides, including cheryl d. mills, a longtime senior adviser, for not recognizing the danger sooner. <u+201c>this is a cheryl special,<u+201d> ms. tanden wrote. <u+201c>know you love her, but this stuff is like her achilles heel. or kryptonite. she just can<u+2019>t say no.<u+201d> as the controversy wore on, ms. tanden griped about the white house <u+201c>crapping<u+201d> on mrs. clinton , and insisted that mrs. clinton ought to make a public statement right away. she noted that mrs. clinton, after years of enduring attacks and scandals she regarded as trumped-up, had a tendency to be stubborn about acknowledging error. <u+201c>she always sees herself bending to their will when she hands over information, etc.,<u+201d> she wrote in august 2015. <u+201c>but the way she has to bend here is in the remorse. not the <u+2018>if i had to do it all over again, i wouldn<u+2019>t do it.<u+2019> a real feeling of <u+2014> this decision i made created a mess and i<u+2019>m sorry i did that.<u+201d> in early september, mrs. clinton gave a series of interviews in which she apologized for the email issue. mrs. tanden joked that after one of the interviews, she <u+201c>was able to breathe again.<u+201d> ms. tanden was alert to the potential threat posed by mr. sanders<u+2019>s outsider campaign. she cautioned mr. podesta that aggressively going after mr. sanders could backfire. <u+201c>just game out what that does to hillary,<u+201d> she wrote in august 2015. <u+201c>when we went after obama, she got killed for it. reaffirmed all her negatives, strengthened him. we had no idea it was kryptonite for us to do that, but it was.<u+201d> if ms. tanden seemed particularly on guard, perhaps it was because she knew what a failed clinton campaign looked like <u+2014> and how painful it could be. during mrs. clinton<u+2019>s 2008 presidential run, ms. tanden wrote to mr. podesta about her malaise as it ended . <u+201c>i am really profoundly sad today. i thought i was over it,<u+201d> she wrote. <u+201c>but here i am sad. she<u+2019>s not conceding tonight. ... and not anytime soon, either.<u+201d> a version of this article appears in print on october 30, 2016, on page a20 of the new york edition with the headline: leaks lay bare a longtime clinton adviser<u+2019>s unflinching straight talk. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
wikileaks lays bare a clinton insider<u+2019>s emphatic cheers and jeers
steve eder nicholas confessore