Story highlights Trump seized on the email Tuesday

The White House walked back Obama's remarks two days after Mills' email

Washington (CNN) A top Hillary Clinton adviser said President Barack Obama's answer on Clinton's private email use as secretary of state needed "clean up," according to hacked emails from her campaign chairman released Tuesday.

In a March 2015 email chain , Cheryl Mills, a top legal adviser and longtime member of Clinton's inner circle, told campaign Chairman John Podesta of an interview in which Obama said he learned about Clinton's private email setup from news reports.

"We need to clean this up -- he has emails from her -- they do not say state.gov," Mills wrote to Podesta.

WikiLeaks has released emails hacked from Podesta's private gmail account daily for more than two weeks. The Clinton campaign has refused to confirm or deny specific emails' authenticity and has accused the Russian government of being behind their theft and release -- a claim WikiLeaks and the Russians have denied. Because emails are released at WikiLeaks' discretion and without full context, it is unclear if Podesta responded.

The email chain was spurred by a CBS News interview March 7, 2015 , where correspondent Bill Plante asked the President about Clinton's private email "setup," which had been reported in The New York Times earlier that week. Obama's response was that he first learned about it via the news.

Read More