Subject: POLITICO Huddle, presented by the American Bankers Association: EMAIL WOES RATTLE CLINTON’S SENATE CHEERLEADERS — FBI recovers Clinton’s ‘wiped’ personal emails — FRANCIS IS HERE—Boehner’s peeps have a really cool pope cam — SENATE TESTS CRUZ’S STRATEGY.
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 06:09:48 -0600

09/23/2015 08:08AM EDT

By Rachael Bade ([email-masked] or @RachaelMBade)

EMAIL WOES RATTLE CLINTON'S SENATE CHEERLEADERS. Burgess has the story: "Senat[ors acknowledge] being confronted with questions about her campaign performance and Sanders' summer surge. Some said they have concerns of their own about her handling of the flap over her email practices as secretary of state, even as they hope she's turned a corner. 'She's struggling. And you can see the numbers are moving in a direction she wants to change,' said Durbin, who spent Labor Day alongside Clinton. Of Democratic primary voters drawn to Sanders, Durbin added: 'It isn't like they're dead set against Hillary. But they find Bernie's message to be the right message.'"

"Some senators say privately that it's disconcerting that Clinton has been unable to shift her campaign narrative from the recent pattern of bad polls and bite-sized revelations about her emails. But rather than sound alarm bells, Senate Democrats, a bedrock of Clinton's support, are prepared to quietly nurse their anxiety and wait it out." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e3329097760803ffafb178c0f4f900e0eb9eedea02cc6e041476e6 

LATEST CLINTON EMAILS DRIP broken down into three parts: 

1.) "FBI Said to Recover Personal E-Mails From Hillary Clinton Server," per Del Quentin Wilber for Bloomberg: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's success at salvaging personal e-mails that Clinton said had been deleted raises the possibility that the Democratic presidential candidate's correspondence eventually could become public." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290247cbcd85fefcac2e0bf360194d7f7e3b6a07a3bf8d01aea

2.) "State Department's account of e-mail request differs from Clinton's," per The Washington Post's Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman: "State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton's characterization [that she was responding to a routine records request]. They said the request was not simply about general rec&shy;ord-keeping but was prompted entirely by the discovery that Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system. They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014, at least three months before the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors to provide their e-mails." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290053c95708e81040771e6c8127d75594801e192ccac0a0cd0 

3.) "More [withheld] emails surface in Hillary Clinton Benghazi probe," by Josh Gerstein and your Huddle author: "More previously undisclosed State Department emails related to Benghazi have surfaced in a federal court filing...The filing Monday in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative group Citizens United describes about a dozen Benghazi-related emails that were withheld in whole or in part" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290ee32994616132e45b02eb4a64b57beac9446af827cfe1812 

FRANCIS GOES TO WASHINGTON. IT'S SEPT. 23, 2015. Thanks for reading Huddle, where we hope you have a map of the road closures and Capitol complex to avoid the soul-sucking crowds following Pope Francis today. Send me your best Pope twitter-pics here for a shout in tomorrow's newsletter. Tweet: @RachaelMBade. Or via email: [email-masked]. 

TODAY IN CONGRESS: Both the House and Senate are out.

** A message from the American Bankers Association: If we mandated cellphone technology, we'd still have brick style phones. If Congress mandates a static payments technology, security safeguards will be out of date tomorrow. Let's Innovate. Not Mandate. Learn more at letsinnovatenotmandate.com **

FRANCIS IS HERE. Just look at the headlines on any newspaper in town. Today he's at the White House and saying mass at the National Shrine - before the main event tomorrow: the first-ever pontiff address to Congress. Sounds like he's already pushing back against Americans' desire to box him in as a liberal or as a conservative. AP: " Even before he arrived for his first U.S. visit, Francis was fending off conservative criticism of his economic views. He told reporters on his flight from Cuba that some people may have an inaccurate impression that he is 'a little bit more left-leaning.' 'I am certain that I have never said anything beyond what is in the social doctrine of the church,' he
 said.

"As for conservatives who question whether he is truly Catholic, he added jokingly, 'If I have to recite the Creed, I'm ready.' http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290b4ea03ade8fbf5f5def1ffcdd222f023d6ef0f3394cd3fb4 

CATCH BOEHNER'S POPE CAM. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), a Catholic who will receive a private audience with the pope, has designated a staffer to provide constant, up-close-and-personal coverage of the Ohio Republican's day with Francis tomorrow. His 29-year-old digital communications director Caleb Smith - who's apparently sleeping at the capitol tonight in anticipation of the event - will use a homemade three-in-one devise to capture the scene and broadcast it live on his Facebook. We're bet our bank account that we'll see some famous Boehner tears, no? (H/t Kevin Smith). 

Meredith Shiner has a sit-down with Caleb for Yahoo: "Thursday, Smith will play a very specific and different role: By never leaving Boehner's side, he'll provide one of the Internet's clearest windows into the first-ever papal visit to Congress. He plans to trail the speaker '100 percent of the day' ... The device, shaped like a scepter, includes a high-definition camera and an encoder to stream that HD footage directly to a computer in the speaker's office. There, press staffers ... will clip videos, photos and GIFs ... on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube... An iPhone will capture video that will be streamed live to the speaker's Facebook page." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e332900af47a4027838c8080bbe621aa719488295a0084fee36215 

LOW-WAGE CAPITOL WORKERS WELCOME POPE'S VISIT -WITH A STRIKE. House and Senate cafeteria workers, and other Hill staff unhappy with their incomes, have been plotting a way to get Pope Francis' attention during his Thursday visit. The pontiff is known to veer off script and embrace nearby crowds, especially when those crowds are low-income earners. They're hoping to use that to their advantage.

Rachel Roubein reports for National Journal: "[L]ow-wage Capitol and federal contract workers organized by Good Jobs Na&shy;tion went on strike Tuesday morning. Their demand: $15 an hour and a union. This isn't the first time that Capitol and federal contract workers have gone on strike to raise their pay to what they say would be a liv&shy;ing wage. But with Fran&shy;cis-an equality advocate with one of the largest soap&shy;boxes-almost in their midst, they seized the moment to rally again." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290c7dcbbba9ffb3fe15bb178ce980b1457097e1c8f992ab76f 

IN OTHER NEWS TOMORROW - 

SENATE TESTS CRUZ'S SPENDING STRATEGY: The upper chamber will vote on a short-term spending bill that defunds Planned Parenthood - which will, of course, fail. Burgess and Seung Min: "If the government shuts down, Mitch McConnell wants to make sure the Senate isn't to blame. After trying to keep his strategy under wraps for days, the Senate majority leader made his first moves on Tuesday to avoid a lapse in federal funding on Oct. 1... set up a Thursday vote that would fund the government through Dec. 11 while gutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood and boosting defense spending by $13 billion - an approach favored by conservatives on the right."

"That legislation will fail due to Democratic opposition, allowing McConnell to argue that Senate Republicans tried the hard-line tactic proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), but it couldn't pass. McConnell could then turn to a "clean" funding bill that Democrats have promised to support." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290ac59d62ef111d16d5578fcad546792337eb2f1a88654beb3 

BUT SHUTDOWN THREATS PERSISTS. Kristina Peterson and Stephanie Armour for the Wall Street Journal: "[D]ivisions among House Republicans continued to cast doubt over whether Congress would act to avoid a shutdown next Thursday... But the bigger question is whether House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) will be willing to go along with a plan unpopular among many of his most conservative lawmakers, who say the must-pass spending bill should strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290e88896189ac2b4320dfb58838e70bd7854332c13bb975705 

"BOEHNER COUP TALK PUTS HOUSE GOP ON EDGE." Scott Wong for The Hill: "Talk that conservatives might use a government-funding showdown to overthrow the powerful Ohio Republican has triggered a flurry of behind-the-scenes jockeying among lawmakers eager to move up the leadership ladder. And that has lawmakers wondering more than ever if Boehner's days as Speaker are numbered. 'That's what tells you there's something afoot. You know there's some drops of blood in the water, because all the sharks are starting to circle,' said one conservative lawmaker who backs Boehner's ouster..."

"Publicly, Boehner is projecting confidence, repeatedly telling reporters in recent weeks he has 'widespread support' from his GOP conference. But even behind closed doors, Boehner has had to contend with nagging questions about his political future. At a private fundraiser for a GOP lawmaker last week, a donor asked Boehner whether he was worried about a possible conservative insurrection. 'Look, this group of guys is not going to knock me off my stride,' Boehner replied, according to a source in the room." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e33290c3bd54e67c2944b07a3947a4a5d7d8c6d1911f8f18d6ce2e 

TUESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER: John Clark of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers was the first to answer that the United States cut off diplomatic relations with the Vatican over a dispute over its refusal to extradite John Surratt, who allegedly helped plot Lincoln's assassination with John Wilkes Booth.

TODAY'S TRIVIA: Which comes from our Monday's trivia winner, Claude Marx: In honor of the Pope's visit, who was the first Roman Catholic presidential nominee and who was the first Roman Catholic vice presidential nominee? Email [email-masked]. 

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says 'Sign Up.' http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c5e93734c4e3329054e929884ad3800ad349a983be75336d7942d883649326d7 

** A message from the American Bankers Association: High-profile data breaches underscore the need for stronger and more innovative security solutions that protect consumers. Banks and payment networks continue to invest heavily in the development and implementation of promising new technologies that protect consumers everywhere purchases are made. Some people want Congress to mandate a static payments technology. That would be a mistake, as security safeguards would be quickly out of date. Mandates hinder the ability to adapt and react to evolving threats. Let's Innovate. Not Mandate. Learn more at letsinnovatenotmandate.com **

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