A new email released by WikiLeaks in connection with its dump of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email server suggests a senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden may have undermined his presidential aspirations to help Hillary Clinton.

Ron Klain, a Democrat stalwart who served as chief of staff to Biden and Vice President Al Gore, sent an email to Podesta suggesting the Clinton campaign wasn’t sitting idly by while Biden was agonizing as to whether or not to stage a campaign for president, just months after the tragic death of his son Beau.

“It’s been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them — but I’m glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” he wrote to Podesta and Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.

The rhetoric does not correspond to the campaign’s public posturing surround Biden’s months-long deliberation. “Vice President Biden is a friend of mine. He and I were colleagues in the Senate, I worked with him as first lady, I worked with him in President Obama’s first term, and I have a great deal of admiration and respect for him,” Clinton said in Ankeny, Iowa in August, 2015. “I think he has to make what is a very difficult decision for himself and his family, and he should have the space and opportunity to decide what he wants to do.”

The email was sent on Oct. 14, a full week before Biden’s Rose Garden announcement that he would not seek the presidency on Oct. 21. It is unclear what “the Biden demise” refers to, what role Klain played in Biden’s ultimate decision not to run for president, or how much the Clinton campaign was involved in that decision.

[dcquiz] Klain’s defection from the administration further underlines the extent to which establishment Democrats rallied around Clinton in advance of the campaign.

The Daily Caller first reported Tuesday that interim Democratic National Convention chair Donna Brazile may have shared questions for a CNN town hall with the camp Clinton in advance. She strongly denied the allegation in a statement yesterday. (RELATED: Revealed: Donna Brazile Shared CNN Town Hall Questions With Clinton Camp)

The Clinton campaign did not comment on this story by press time.

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