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Both former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are working on plans to campaign for Democrats in 2018, and Democrats worry they plan to change the direction of the Party.

Aides to Obama told The Hills Amie Parnes he is looking to resurface on the national campaign stage. Parnes also reported Tuesday that Clinton is trying to sort out what role she might play in the midterm elections.

Parnes has written several books about the Clinton and Obama races.

Although the pair bring a lot of fundraising firepower to a very crowded field of needy Democratic candidates, party insiders worry about who would control the party if either past candidate became too influential.

He has to be careful, Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University told The Hill. At a moment when President Trumps approval is falling so fast including with his base there is a risk for Obama taking center stage and triggering the energy that many Republicans currently lack.

Zelizer has a point. Republicans both on The Hill and in the White House successfully campaigned against the former president, winning control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidency during the course of Obamas controversial tenure.

But Clinton brings a whole new set of potential baggage to the 2018 electoral cycle. The DemocraticNational Committees leaks revealed that members of the party worked with the Clinton campaign to ensure she received the nomination over Sen. Bernie Sanders, and she her reliance on Hollywood elites and overblown advertising campaigns failed to win over key minority voters in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania.

Despite those drawbacks, Clinton insiders argue that the former senator could help Democrats in states that she won over Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

No one can argue that Clinton helping in those areas wouldnt be helpful, an unnamed Clinton source told Parnes. That is a priority for her.

Despite Democratic assertions, Republican strategists welcome the return of the partys greatest targets in modern political history.

For 30 years, Hillary Clinton has essentially been Old Faithful for Republican candidates,strategist Doug Heye told The Hill. Her continued prominence only helps GOP candidates with an electorate that historically is more favorable than what they faced in the last presidential election.

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Obama, Hillary Set To Hit The Campaign Trail Again - The Daily Caller

Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonJudge orders new search for Hillary Clinton's Benghazi emails Chance the Rapper: 'I have a bigger voice than Donald Trump' Bill and Hillary Clinton to take questions at joint Dallas appearance MORE and former President Bill ClintonBill ClintonPenalties assessed by EPA decline under Trump, study finds Bill and Hillary Clinton to take questions at joint Dallas appearance Monica Lewinsky responds to Scaramucci calling New Yorker reporter 'the Linda Tripp of 2017' MORE will make a rare joint appearance at aDallas suburb in November, according to the Irving Music Factory website.

Tickets for the event at theyet-to-open entertainment complex will include a question-and-answer session and will go on sale later this month. Tickets willstart at $99.50 plus a fee, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The rare appearance comes as Clinton increases her public presence after asurprise loss to President Trump in last year's presidential election.

The last few months, I've been reflecting, spending time with familyand, yes, taking walks in the woods.

In September, theformer first lady and secretary of State will publish a book titled "What Happened"that details her experience on the 2016 campaign.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton to take questions at joint Dallas appearance - The Hill (blog)

The 2016 election may be long over but the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails related to the 2012 Benghazi attack has been given fresh lifeby a federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled earlier this week that the State Department had not been sufficiently thorough when responding to Freedom of Information requests for messages Clinton may have sent related to the attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, on September 11, 2012.

Related: Benghazi, emails, foundation: Clinton talks controversy

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The State Department found 348 Benghazi-related messages among the 30,000 emails handed over by Clinton in December 2014 after it emerged that she had been using a personal email server during her time as Obamas secretary of state, Politico reported. But, responding to a challenge by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, Mehta ordered the State Department to also conduct a search of its own systems.

An agency cannot limit its search to only one record system if there are others that are likely to turn up the information requested, Mehta, who was appointed to the court in December 2014, wrote in his ruling.

To date, State has searched only data compilations originating from outside sourcesSecretary Clinton, her former aides, and the FBI.... It has not, however, searched the one records system over which it has always had control and that is almost certain to contain some responsive records: the state.gov email server.

Mehta has asked for a status report by September 22. It is unclear how many fresh emails related to the Benghazi attack the renewed search will uncover. During the investigation, the State Department argued that there was no automated archiving of official email. That explanation is insufficient to prevent a further search, Mehta said.

State has offered no assurance that the three record compilations it received [from Secretary Clinton and her aides], taken together, constitute the entirety of Secretary Clintons emails during the time period relevant to Plaintiffs FOIA Request.

Hillary Clinton exhales while testifying before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Capitol Hill, October 22, 2015. The State Department did not go far enough in uncovering Clintons emails related to the 2012 Benghazi attack, a federal judge appointed by Obama rules. Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The state also contended that ordering the fresh search would set a bad precedent for Freedom of Information Act requests. Mehta disagreed, rulingthat the circumstances surrounding Clintons emails were unique.

This matter is a far cry from a typical FOIA case, he wrote. Secretary Clinton used a private email server, located in her home, to transmit and receive work-related communications during her tenure as secretary of state. As a result, state servers did not capture and store all of the secretarys emails.

Judicial Watch said the ruling may help shed further light on what happened during the Benghazi attack, which has long been a major talking point for conservatives.

This major court ruling may finally result in more answers about the Benghazi scandaland Hillary Clintons involvement in itas we approach the attacks fifth anniversary, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. It is remarkable that we had to battle both the Obama and Trump administrations to break through the State Departments Benghazi stonewall. Why are Secretary Tillerson and Attorney General Sessions wasting taxpayer dollars protecting Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration?

Donald Trump used the emails and the Benghazi issues to attack his Democratic rival during the 2016 election campaign. Trump claimed Clinton was slow to respond to the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound, erroneously claiming that she soundly slept in her bed as the events unfolded in Libya.

A House Select Committee investigation that lasted more than two years and costover $7 million concluded last June that there was no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing on the part of Clinton.

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Hillary Clinton Benghazi Email Investigation Not Over Yet, Thanks to Judge's Order - Newsweek

A United Methodist minister, Shillady met Clinton, a lifelong Methodist, in 2002, when Shillady pastored a church in New York City. Over the years, a spiritual kinship formed between the pastor and politician, and as Clinton began her second run for the White House, Shillady offered to send her daily devotionals based on the day's news.

Sometimes they were snippets of Scripture with encouraging mini-sermons. Other days' devotions included poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning or insights from the late Catholic writer Henri Nouwen that sought to put political troubles into proper perspective. Eventually, Shillady recruited a team of writers, including dozens of women who formed a "We Pray with Her," group.

Shillady collected the devotions in a book, called "Strong for a Moment Like This," which will publish on August 15. The minister talked to CNN this week about the email he sent Clinton the morning after the election, how faith is leading her "out of the woods" and why he expects to soon see the former politician in the pulpit.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I remember talking to you on Election Day, and you sounded pretty optimistic. What were those 24 hours like for you?

My writing team sent (Clinton) a message about every half-hour during the day, and everything seemed fine. They had asked me to open the Javits Center program (where Clinton's victory rally was to be held) with a prayer, and as the night went on, it was like a funeral wake. The Javits Center just got quieter and quieter. I went home to bed, and then I got up to write the hardest devotional I had to write. I didn't get much sleep that night.

Had you planned what you would write if Clinton lost the election?

About a week before the election, I wrote to my writing team and said, "Friends we need to think about devotionals that celebrate victory or help us deal with defeat." The devotional itself took me a little longer to write because I remember crying as I would write.

Your Nov. 9 devotional compares Hillary Clinton's loss to Good Friday. That's pretty intense.

I woke up that morning (on November 9) and it felt like maybe what the Apostles experienced on Good Friday. Their leader, master and savior was dead and gone and they didn't know what to do. And I thought of this phrase from the Rev. Tony Compolo: Good Friday was tough, but Sunday was coming.

In that metaphor, what does "Sunday" represent for Hillary Clinton's career, for her life?

"Sunday" is now for her. She's the most relaxed I've ever seen her, having fun with her grandchildren. I think she'll continue to speak out on issues that are important to her on women and gender and children's health. "Sunday" is not another election for her. She's moving on with her life.

So you don't think she'll run for president again?

I don't think she would run again. I don't have any knowledge other than my personal speculation, but she's fine where she is. She's told me that a number of times. She certainly was heartbroken, but her faith helped her move through that darkness.

Can you speak a bit more about that? What spiritual practices helped her deal with her defeat?

She knows the Bible remarkably well, and I think she knows what passages to turn to when she needs inspiration or solace. She reads her Scripture every day. That, for her, is a practice of spiritual discipline. She told me that my email was the first she opened every day and and it helped keep her grounded and centered.

Since the election, she's also spent time walking in the woods and having time to think and pray. Now she says she's coming out of the woods.

And where will that lead her? To the pulpit, maybe?

We were having a photo shoot for the book and chatting about preaching and she said, "Bill, I think I'd like to preach." In United Methodism, there's a tradition of having laypeople preach from the pulpit, and I think she's going to look at occasionally doing that and sharing the good news without it being a politically charged environment.

Some pundits say that Clinton lost, in part, because she didn't share more about her faith. Do you think that's true?

I think it's partially true, but she did speak a lot about her faith at various townhalls and rallies and when meeting people on the street. But it was not reported, and it wasn't what her critics wanted to look at. She talked about her faith every time she was asked about it, but within the Methodist culture, we aren't people who wear our religion our on sleeves.

Clinton seemed most comfortable talking about spirituality, and connecting it to her politics, in black churches. Why do you think that might be?

Maybe she didn't have to be as guarded there, because they're weren't as many critics. She is very comfortable in the pulpit. It's something that comes naturally to her, and she knows the Bible. That's why I think she'd make a great preacher.

When you talked to Clinton after the election, what did you say?

It was the Saturday after the election and we spent some time talking on the phone. She expressed how brokenhearted she was and how worried for the nation and what the future holds for people. But what was surprising to me is that she spent most of the call expressing gratitude to all the writers who were part of my team. She went on and on about how important the devotions had been to her, especially those we sent to her on November 9, 10 and 11. For her, it was a reminder that faith would get her through the difficult times.

How about yourself? Was your faith challenged by the election results?

It wasn't a challenge to my faith in terms of believing or not believing in God. I'm a bit of a process theologian, which means that, as life goes along, I believe in an all-loving God who may not always be in control, rather than an all-powerful God who is not loving. But I was definitely depressed for a few months after the election.

What pulled you out of that depression?

I guess editing the book of devotionals. As I began to think about how the book would come together, it pulled me back from that darkness. The devotionals are inspiring. There's a hopeful sense that a better future is coming, and I had to live into that.

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How faith led Hillary Clinton 'out of the woods' - CNN

With the media fawning over allegations of Russian influence and hacking of the presidential election, it seems there is no limit to the appetite for tales of intrigue. But this tale is not about foreign agents or a rogue government.

Instead, the culprits are much closer to home: the U.S. Postal Service.

While their actions weren't as nefarious as hacking voting machines, changing voter registration files, or throwing away campaign literature intended for voters, their alleged illegal activities are no less disturbing. And they are part of a larger pattern of unionized government employees working to grow the very programs that benefit their unions.

The Washington Post recently reported that the "Postal Service broke law in pushing time off for workers to campaign for Clinton." The law in question is the Hatch Act, which limits federal employee participation in certain types of political activities.

An internal investigation was launched after several USPS employees approached their union representatives to complain.

But the broader scandal isn't just that government employees were in the tank for the Democratic candidate or even that employees possibly violated the Hatch Act (or that the USPS lost $2.1 billion in one quarter). It's that government unions have for years been incentivizing their workers to spend time pushing their political agenda rather than serving their customers. Campaigning for a candidate who wants to grow government is just a more egregious form of that all-too-common practice.

Unions such as the the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFSCME, and the American Federation of Teachers contribute millions to liberal groups, which then turn around and advocate higher taxes and spending that directly benefit those unions.

The potential for corruption in such a system is obvious. Even President Franklin Roosevelt, the great champion of bigger government, agreed. "All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he wrote in 1937.

It should shock no one when organizations that owe their existence to big government do whatever they can to perpetuate it.

In the Clinton campaign case, the Postal Service relieved union members of their postal duties for weeks at a time and encouraged employees to do union-funded work for various Democratic candidates while on leave, even in the face of local post office managers' complaints of understaffing. Door-to-door efforts and phone banks were used to promote Clinton's campaign; while the workers requested leave without pay, they were compensated through the union's political action committee.

These were not just a few rogue postal workers. The National Association of Letter Carriers allegedly sent a list of individuals who would be participating in the campaign to USPS headquarters. Later, a senior labor relations official forwarded the information to other locations across the country.

When faced with these accusations, Postmaster General Megan Brennan said "senior postal leadership did not in any way guide union leadership in selecting the candidates for whom NALC employees could campaign."

But it's no surprise that the NALC lists were interpreted as explicit directives from the top that participants were to be given leave without pay so they could work on campaigns. Investigators said the practice of giving union employees leave to participate in campaign activity was "long-standing" and has been going on for about two decades.

That's not what unions are for. Unionized government employees should have the right to decide if they want their dues to be spent on political activity. And those unions should work to represent their members, not elect political candidates or grow the size of government.

Eric Peterson (@IllinoisEric89) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity. Megan McKinley is an intern at Americans for Prosperity and a student at Oklahoma Christian University.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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How the Postal Service tried to swing the election for Hillary Clinton - Washington Examiner