Two presidential election cycles before Bill Clinton’s 2016 DNC speech, his wife Hillary Clinton was embroiled in a fierce 2008 primary campaign against Barack Obama. During that election, Hillary’s campaign pounced on the opportunity to capitalize on the whisper campaigns about Obama being a secret Muslim. In February 2008, many Americans might remember that there was a high-profile photograph of Barack Obama wearing traditional white African attire (with matching white turban) during a trip to Kenya which was leaked to the press. According to numerous media reports, this photograph was actually leaked by staffers inside the Hillary Clinton campaign to the Drudge Report. According to The Guardian newspaper in London, a Clinton staffer had emailed them the photograph with the caption: “Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were [Hillary]?”

XREF: Connects to broader knowledge of dog-whistle politics in Democratic primaries and the false 'secret Muslim' smear against Obama, including later controversies over Obama's birth certificate.

QUESTION: The origin of the leak is based on media reports and The Guardian; worth probing sourcing and whether it was corroborated more broadly.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 705