Chairman of the 2016 Clinton campaign John Podesta and Clinton aide Cheryl Mills are on record discussing the campaign’s strategy to avoid discussing the e-mail scandal at all costs, according to recently released e-mails.

Deputy Communications Director for the Clinton campaign Kristina Schake says in an e-mail to Podesta and Mills that she is more than ready “to testify” before Congress regarding the Clinton e-mail scandal that took place during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

Schake described how she publicly called for “Chairman Gowdy to immediately release all my emails related to Benghazi.”

Podesta replies within an hour saying “I think we are off an aggressive statement saying I’m ready to testify any place any time.” He says it should take “3 weeks to prepare on emails, which puts us right up against the launch time,” for the Clinton campaign, which occurred April 12, 2015.

Podesta obviously knows the seriousness of what could be contained in the thousands of unreleased e-mails, saying he is “massively opposed to the first idea of I’m ready to testify bravado.” Knowing that the e-mails would be under further scrutiny, Podesta urges staff to evade testifying or bringing light to the e-mails in any way.

Within two minutes, Cheryl Mills chimes in to back up Podesta with “not on board – why poke the bear.”

Podesta’s concluding remarks show what the Clinton campaign strategy has been regarding the e-mails since before the launch date: evasion. Podesta says “my perspective is that we want the fight to be about Benghazi, not about servers in her basement. This helps move the story back in that direction.”

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