WikiLeaks shells out more damage to Clinton campaign

(FOX 32 NEWS) - More embarrassments for Hillary Clinton in the latest batch of what Wikileaks claims are emails of her top campaign staffers.

U.S. intelligence agencies said they were stolen by hackers close to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.They show Clinton's political backbone was not strong on at least one issue.

As Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders challenged Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, Sanders sided with environmentalists who said the Keystone XL pipeline would worsen climate change.  The pipeline was planned to carry heavy crude oil from strip-mined tar sands in western Canada to refineries in the U.S. 

"We've not yet signed off on it but we are inclined to do so," then-Secretary of State Clinton said in 2010. 

As she prepared to flip-flop last year, her campaign press secretary apparently asked in one email if Clinton's "newfound position on Keystone (would be) greeted cynically and perhaps as part of some manufactured attempt to project sincerity?"

Building trades unions strongly supported Keystone XL, because it promised thousands of jobs. Union leaders thought Clinton supported it, too, and aides worried about she could break the news without also breaking the relationship.

At one point, a speechwriter emailed, "We are trying to find a good way to leak her opposition to the pipeline without her having to actually say it." 

Some labor leaders were angry with Clinton's flip-flop. One email trail shows concern that the Laborers International Union was reaching out to Republican candidates who favored the pipeline. In the end, they endorsed Clinton.

The emails showed internal debate within the Clinton campaign on how to sell her switcheroo on the pipeline. She ended up linking her anti-pipeline climate change position with a promise to spend more on clean energy to generate jobs.