pull strings

After some anxious thought he decided that it was his duty to try to pull strings.

It's the only way; you're too drunk to pull strings with that pardner o' yours, and we're goin' to stand by you, see?

They hop with the most confident air, and day after day pull strings out of the ground.

And the first thing to do was to assume direction of the police, to pull strings, to engineer matters.

She was still able to pull strings, and to make her influence felt in various directions.

I want to pull strings, even for somebody else, or be Princetonian chairman or Triangle president.