By Katie Bo Williams - 11/02/16 03:43 PM EDT
A State Department official appeared to coordinate with Hillary Clinton’s nascent presidential campaign on a statement given to The New York Times last year, according to emails leaked Wednesday.
The exchange came the day before the newspaper first reported on Clinton’s use of a private server to conduct government business while serving as secretary of State.
According to a message dated March 1, 2015, State Department press aide Lauren Hickey told Clinton aides that then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki had “just cleared” a statement to a Times reporter.
Hickey attached the statement, which appeared to include a change made at the behest of the Clinton aides.
“Yes on your point re records - done below,” she wrote.
It is unclear what change had been requested.
The statement describes the State Department’s efforts to respond to document requests from the House Benghazi Committee, which uncovered the existence of Clinton's server.
The State Department “has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the committee’s many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the committee’s hearings,” the statement read.
A day after the exchange, The Times published a report revealing Clinton's server to the public.
Weeks later, Clinton officially announced her candidacy for president.
State Department spokesman John Kirby declined Wednesday to comment on the alleged leaked documents in a statement, but noted that “[providing] accurate information to the media and the public related to former Secretary Clinton’s emails… at times required communicating with her representatives to ensure accuracy.”
The emails, apparently stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account, have been published in daily batches by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The campaign has refused to comment on the messages' authenticity, but they are believed to have been stolen as part of a misinformation campaign by the Russian government aimed at disrupting the U.S. presidential election.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/304043-emails-clinton-team-communication-with-state-on-emails
