Hillary Clinton struggled to fit into the government of President Barack Obama after being appointed Secretary of State in 2009, according to emails released by the State Department on Tuesday.
They showed Clinton turning up for meetings that had been canceled and worrying about how much time she had with her new boss, revealing growing pains in the relationship between her and former election rival Obama in the early months of her time as America’s top diplomat.
In an email to two aides on June 8, 2009, Clinton was unsure if the White House had held a Cabinet meeting and whether she should attend.
“I heard on the radio that there is a Cabinet mtg this am. Is there? Can I go? If not, who are we sending?” Clinton wrote.
A State Department official wrote back that the government was holding a meeting, but not a full cabinet meeting that she needed to be at.
As Clinton sought to navigate her relationship with the Obama White House, she corresponded with several former aides and advisers to her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
They included Sidney Blumenthal, a former White House speech writer, Sandy Berger, the former National Security Adviser and Mark Penn, who served as a political adviser to both Bill Clinton and to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 White House bid.
