Updated June 14, 2026. Originally published September 2016. Preserved as a historical news beat from the 2016 presidential campaign cycle.
Note: This piece references Rubenstein Communications, the Howard Rubenstein-founded firm (now operating as Rubenstein and led by Steven Rubenstein). For the canonical Rubenstein Communications context — and the distinction from Rubenstein Public Relations (RPR), the separate Richard Rubenstein-led firm — see the Rubenstein PR Dynasty profile.
During the September 2016 9/11 memorial in New York, a woman in a blue suit standing near Hillary Clinton's secret service detail drew speculation. Initial coverage assumed she was a nurse traveling with the presidential candidate. She was not. The woman was Christine Falvo — at the time, Chief Operating Officer of Rubenstein Communications, doing pro-bono volunteer PR duty at the event.
The story sat against a broader 2016 backdrop: persistent speculation about Hillary Clinton's health, including questions raised after a concussion she suffered in 2012, the Clinton camp's repeated denials followed by partial confirmations of dehydration and a pneumonia diagnosis, and what eventually became one of the defining crisis-communications case studies of the modern campaign era. The Falvo identification became a small but instructive sub-story within the larger episode.
Christine Falvo's Background
Christine Falvo and Hillary Clinton were both Wellesley College graduates. Falvo worked for Clinton as an aide during Clinton's tenure as junior senator from New York (2001–2007), then briefly at the State Department advising Secretary Clinton in 2009 after Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State. Falvo subsequently moved to Rubenstein Communications in a senior operating role.
Falvo was not part of Clinton's regular campaign press operation in 2016. Her presence at the 9/11 memorial was a personal-network volunteer assignment — exactly the kind of informal, trusted-network PR-adjacent support that crisis-sensitive campaigns lean on.
The Crisis-Communications Lesson
The episode produced one of the cleanest illustrations of why staggered disclosure is a worse strategy than rapid transparency. The Clinton camp's sequence — deny, deflect, partial confirm, full confirm — left a trail of incremental admissions that each undermined the credibility of the prior denial. By the time the pneumonia diagnosis was confirmed, public sentiment had already shifted to assume the worst possible interpretation of every prior statement.
The case study has been cited in PR-curriculum crisis-communications training repeatedly in the decade since: transparent disclosure on the front end shortens the news cycle. Drip-feed disclosure extends it indefinitely. The wound, left unaddressed, festers.
Editor's Note (2026 Update)
This piece is preserved as a 2016 news beat. The Rubenstein Communications firm referenced has since rebranded to operate simply as Rubenstein, now led by Steven Rubenstein following Howard Rubenstein's 2020 passing. Christine Falvo's current professional affiliation is not the subject of this piece; readers seeking current Rubenstein leadership detail should refer to the Rubenstein PR Dynasty profile and the separate Rubenstein Public Relations (RPR) firm profile for Richard Rubenstein's independent New York agency.
