washington<u+2014>newly released emails show deep divisions within hillary clinton <u+2019>s political circle about the handling of the controversy over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, with some upset that the arrangement wasn't publicly disclosed far earlier. according to a candid exchange stolen from the email account of clinton campaign chairman john podesta and released by the wikileaks website tuesday, mr. podesta believed her former state department staff mismanaged the political fallout over the email matter. clinton attorney david kendall, former state department chief of staff cheryl mills and former senior adviser philippe reines <u+201c>sure weren<u+2019>t forthcoming on the facts here,<u+201d> mr. podesta wrote in an email to neera tanden, a top progressive activist and a longtime ally of mrs. clinton. mr. podesta and ms. tanden appeared concerned that the advisers had not provided for the email arrangement to become public at a time when it could have done less political damage and avoided the suggestion that mrs. clinton was hiding something. <u+201c>this is a cheryl special,<u+201d> ms. tanden wrote mr. podesta. <u+201c>know you love her, but this stuff is like her achilles' heel. or kryptonite. she just can<u+2019>t say no to this shit. why didn<u+2019>t they get this stuff out like 18 months ago? so crazy.<u+201d> in a follow-up email, ms. tanden added: <u+201c>i guess i know the answer. they wanted to get away with it.<u+201d> she went on to suggest that a better course would have been to have the national archives request mrs. clinton<u+2019>s emails and provide them immediately, rather than allow the existence of the private server to emerge in the congressional benghazi investigation . the exchange casts new light on the tension between the competing camps within mrs. clinton<u+2019>s orbit. mr. podesta now chairs her campaign operation, while her former state department staff has little formal responsibility within the campaign. the clinton campaign has refused to confirm or deny the authenticity of any of the stolen emails, which wikileaks has been releasing in batches almost daily, and has accused republican donald trump of using hacked and stolen information to further his political fortunes. the campaign has also pointed to intelligence officials<u+2019> belief that actors linked to russia were likely involved in the hack of mr. podesta<u+2019>s emails. ms. tanden didn<u+2019>t immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did ms. mills. mr. kendall declined to comment. mr. reines wasn't reachable for comment. capital journal is wsj.com<u+2019>s home for election 2016 news. another email, this one from ms. mills, shows that she was concerned about president barack obama <u+2019>s statement in a cbs news interview that he first learned about mrs. clinton<u+2019>s private email account from media reports. that email was prompted by mr. obama<u+2019>s comment in march 2015 that he<u+2019>d learned about his secretary of state<u+2019>s use of a private email server at <u+201c>the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.<u+201d> that caused concern among two of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s top aides, who noted that the fact that the two corresponded by email could suggest mr. obama was aware mrs. clinton used a non-government email address. <u+201c>we need to clean this up<u+2014>he has emails from her<u+2014>they do not say state.gov,<u+201d> ms. mills wrote mr. podesta the day the interview aired. ms. mills served as an attorney to mrs. clinton after the former secretary left the state department in early 2013. two days after the interview, the white house expanded on mr. obama<u+2019>s statement, saying the president was aware of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s email address but not that it was run from a private server, and also was unaware of how mrs. clinton planned to comply with government record-keeping laws. <u+201c>the point that the president was making is not that he didn<u+2019>t know secretary clinton<u+2019>s email address<u+2014>he did,<u+201d> white house press secretary josh earnest said last year. <u+201c>but he wasn't aware of the details of how that email address and that server had been set up, or how secretary clinton and her team were planning to comply with the federal records act,<u+201d> the record-keeping issue was important because mrs. clinton initially didn<u+2019>t turn over the emails from her tenure as secretary for government archiving, as required by law. she provided emails her attorneys deemed work-related, though not those they considered personal, only after they were requested by the state department. <u+201c>understandably, the kinds of things that a president and his secretary of state talk about are pretty weighty national issues. i<u+2019>m not sure that they drilled all the way down to the federal records act,<u+201d> mr. earnest said. <u+201c>the president did not suggest he hadn<u+2019>t traded emails with her,<u+201d> mr. earnest reiterated tuesday. <u+201c>of course the president had possession of secretary clinton<u+2019>s email address but he did not have any knowledge of where her server was located or what sort of arrangements had been made to store her email.<u+201d> though the majority of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s emails have been released to the public, her correspondence with mr. obama remains private. administration officials have said that the small number of emails the two exchanged will be treated as presidential records and released after mr. obama leaves office, rather than as state department documents and disclosed sooner. mrs. clinton<u+2019>s records from her time as secretary of state are subject to the freedom of information act, meaning they can be requested by the public immediately. mr. obama<u+2019>s records are subject to a different law, called the presidential records act, which provides for release some time after a commander-in-chief leaves office. write to byron tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
clinton confidants privately questioned handling of email controversy  - wsj
byron tau