Hillary Clinton emails: Latest batch show former Secretary of State grappling with Homeland and hair-dos

Instead of revealing damaging secrets that might undermine her credentials for the White House, the newly released correspondences expose her more human side

The newest tranche of Hillary Clinton correspondence offers little of note for opponents of her presidential campaign (Reuters)

Republicans trawling through thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails in an effort to derail her bid for the US presidency may have been disappointed by the latest batch released.

Instead of revealing damaging secrets about her handling of the 2012 attacks on US diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya, or anything else that might undermine her credentials for the White House, the newly released emails expose her more human side, including a desperate attempt to find the right TV channel to watch Homeland and a search for advice on how to style a “fishtail-bun” hair-do.

The emails are being made available on a monthly basis after the investigation into her use of a private email server while at the State Department. But the banality of many exchanges suggests that the controversy that once menaced her campaign has begun to subside.

Mrs Clinton sought to solve the fishtail-bun conundrum by searching the internet for hair-styling videos. One Sunday in October 2012 she asked an aide to help her find the Showtime channel so she could catch Homeland. “Stupid question,” her inquiry to top aide Philippe Reines began. He tried to help. “If you have Comcast, it’s channel 339 or 340 (one is HD and one isn’t). If you don’t have Comcast, I can look it up,” he offered, to which Clinton wrote back, “You won’t be surprised to hear I’m not sure.”

On the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, Mrs Clinton shared her distress with her daughter, Chelsea. “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaeda-like group: the Ambassador, whom I hand-picked, and a young communications officer on temporary duty w[ith] a wife and two young children,” she wrote. “Very hard day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.”

In January 2013, after a Capitol Hill hearing into the Benghazi attacks that came soon after she suffered concussion in a fall and then caught a stomach virus, Mrs Clinton received congratulatory messages for her handling of Republican questioning. “I’m being flooded with emails about how you rocked,” her deputy chief of staff and close confidante, Huma Abedin, wrote.

Mrs Clinton forwarded a message from a former campaign adviser, Mark Penn, who said a moment when she appeared to lose her temper with her inquisitors had not served her well, because she looked rattled - and told her aides to “keep it real”.

Mr Reines, however, was unimpressed. “Give Me a Break!” he responded. “You did not look rattled. You looked real. There’s a difference. A big one.”