Hillary Clinton's inner circle considered leaking a "big, elaborate lie" to the press to distract from her email scandal when the story broke last year.
Newly released emails from Wikileaks reveal that Robby Mook, now Clinton's campaign manager, pushed strongly for trying to change the subject from Clinton's exclusive use of a private email account while she was secretary of state.
In mid-March Mook suggested leaking that Clinton would be announcing her campaign on April 20, 2015 as a "decoy" away from the deepening email scandal. Clinton ended up kicking off her campaign with a video announcement on April 12, and a formal speech on June 1.
It is unclear if Clinton and her senior aides had already decided on an announcement date when this email exchange took place.
"Linking us regarding John's well-sourced decoy leak of April 20 launch date," Mook wrote to Jennifer Palmieri and John Podesta on March 16. "Would be good to do this soon since I'm nervous about our planning circle widening."
A few minutes later Mook sent another email.
"Maybe we could have some fun too and say it will be a speech somewhere," he said. "Really catch people off guard."
Palmieri, who would become Clinton's campaign communications director, seemed dismissive of the idea, calling Mook's decoy a "big, elaborate lie."
"I think this is a great way to do a reset with the press - tell them a big, elaborate lie," she said.
The U.S. director of national intelligence and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security have accused "Russia’s senior-most officials" of hacking and leaking emails posted to Wikileaks and other sites in order to influence the 2016 election.