New emails suggest State Department and Clinton coordination

New revelations from the emails of Hillary Clinton campaign head John Podesta on Wednesday appeared to show coordination between the State Department and the Democrat's campaign. The stolen emails released by Wikileaks suggested that a government official may have tipped Clinton off that news was about to break about the private email server she used as Secretary of State.

The message, dated March 1, 2015, came from Department of State press aid Lauren Hickey. In it, she describes having "just cleared" a reply to a New York Times reporter about to publish the story.

The mail also seemed to imply that the reply to the newspaper had been altered at the Clinton camp's behest, saying: "Yes on your point re records - done below," but without context, it was difficult to say what kind of change was made.

State Department spokesman John Kirby rejected the implication that anything untoward was taking place. Speaking to the press on Wednesday, Kirby said that his department was always determined to "provide accurate information to the media" and that this sometimes required checking in with relevant parties to ensure veracity.

Wednesday's trove of emails about Clinton's private server also included a note from Clinton aide Phillippe Reines saying "there's a lot to respond to here, but first and foremost the premise is wrong. There is nothing wrong with anyone having personal email addresses or her emailing someone's private account or vice versa. Maybe she was wishing [aide] Jake [Sullivan] a happy birthday. Or I was sending her a note about her mom. ... We're allowed to have personal lives."

Since WikiLeaks began publishing the messages stolen from Podesta, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly accused the organization of using data obtained by Russian hackers in a bid to influence the US election's outcome. Americans go to the polls next Tuesday. 

es/msh (AP, AFP)