Hillary Clinton's closest allies were shocked when news of her private email use first broke in March 2015, emails published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday show.

John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chair, and Neera Tanden, co-chair of Clinton's transition team, complained in an exchange written the day after the publication of the New York Times story that exposed her email use that Clinton's team should have made the server public more than a year earlier in order to avoid such a distraction during the presidential election.

"Why didn't they get this stuff out like 18 months ago? So crazy," Tanden said. Podesta agreed that their refusal to do so was "unbelievable."

"[I] guess I know the answer," Tanden replied. "[T]hey wanted to get away with it."

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