As Hillary Clinton’s email scandals go, this was perhaps not a major one, and certainly not in the top secret or classified genre. It was, plain and simply, Democrats circling the wagons to protect one of their own.

A batch of new emails, released by the Republican National Committee (which obtained them under a Freedom of Information request) and shared with The Wall Street Journal, showed just how far the White House and the Kerry State Department would go to protect Clinton as she prepared to enter the Democratic presidential race.

On March 2, 2015, The New York Times was the first to break the story of Clinton’s use of a private email server for conducting government business during her years as secretary of state.

Ten days later then White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri — later to join the Clinton campaign — wrote to State House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, “between us on the [Sunday news] shows… think we can get this done so he [John Kerry] is not asked about email.”

Kerry was to appear three days later on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Psaki — who later replaced Palmieri on the White House staff — was only too happy to oblige, adding, “working to crush on my end.”

The next day she wrote, “Good to go on killing CBS idea.”

CBS has responded that it made no agreement and that “no subject was off limits.” However, the interview focused on the pending Iran nuclear deal and the subject of Clinton’s use of a private server and the State Department current practices never came up.

Another email came from Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary for management at State, assuring one of Clinton’s lawyers that a published report indicating internal criticism of Clinton’s use of a private server was “wildly inaccurate reporting.” In fact, an assistant secretary of state for administration had told Congress Clinton’s practices were “not acceptable.” A later internal report concluded the use of a private server was simply not permitted under State Department policies.

This much is true. A lot of people went out of their way to cover for Hillary Clinton. Shocking? Most voters are beyond being shocked any more.