Clinton camp blindsided by e-mail story

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign-in-waiting appeared unprepared for a New York Times story in 2015 that exposed her exclusive use of private e-mail account and server for government business, according to a newly released e-mail. The day the Times story was published, John Podesta, who would later be named campaign chairman, asked future campaign manager Robby Mook if he had seen it coming. “Did you have any idea of the depth of this story?” Podesta asked Mook in an e-mail late on the evening of March 2, 2015, roughly a month before Clinton launched her bid for the White House. “Nope,” Mook responded after 1 am that night. “We brought up the existence of emails in reserach (sic) this summer but were told that everything was taken care of.”

The discussion, which was released by WikiLeaks from a batch of messages apparently stolen from Podesta’s account, sheds additional light on the campaign’s lack of preparation for questions about Clinton’s bespoke setup. The private e-mail arrangement has become a cloud over the Democratic presidential nominee and spurred a yearlong FBI investigation. The e-mail released Oct 27 is one of several published by WikiLeaks detailing the Clinton campaign’s scurrying response to revelations about her e-mail server.