Just days after Politico White House correspondent Mike Allen apologized after an email surfaced of him promising Chelsea Clinton a “no risk” interview, Gawker published a new batch of emails Thursday showing Allen made similar offers to a senior Democratic lawmaker in his attempts to secure an interview.
In the emails, sent to the lawmaker’s office in 2011 and 2012, Allen offers a “no surprises” interview that would “stick to the subjects we discussed.” Across seven emails, the creator of Politico’s Playbook newsletter also offered to ask questions the subject “is comfortable discussing” and said the sit-down wouldn’t entail “the risk or high-wire act of a Sunday show.”
“I have a long track record of ‘no surprises,’” Allen wrote in one email, citing past interviews done with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
While Allen’s language varies slightly across the messages, his offer to provide the senior lawmaker with a safe platform to push his or her talking points was consistent.
Gawker did not name the Democrat that Allen was courting for his Playbook Breakfast event series. It wasn’t clear how the site obtained the emails, or if Allen’s efforts to secure an interview ever came to fruition.
In a statement provided to the site, Politico chief operating officer Kim Kingsley defended Allen.
“In all of my years in the news business, never once have I heard a reporter pitch an interview with the promise of being unfair, risky, gotcha, full of surprises or with similar terms,” she wrote.
Allen said “MY BAD!” about the Clinton email in Monday’s Playbook. Regarding his promise to provide Clinton with interview questions beforehand, he wrote, “I have never done that, and would never do that,” noting such conduct is against Politico’s editorial policies.
Allen recently sparked Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ire during his Wednesday Playbook Breakfast by revealing Emanuel’s holiday plans to travel with his family to Cuba.
An irate Emanuel demanded Allen’s phone number on stage and said “it’s not going to work” when Allen tried to apologize.
Read the emails, via Gawker’s J.K. Trotter, here.
