Former President Bill Clinton reportedly spread a rumor that The New York Times played up the FBI’s investigation into his wife’s use of a private email server as part of a secret deal with Donald Trump to destroy her chances of becoming president.

The conspiracy theory which was reportedly spread by the former president holds that the Times was eager to see Trump elected because it would boost readership.

‘After the election, Bill would spread a more absurd Times conspiracy: The publisher had struck a deal with Trump that we’d destroy Hillary on her emails to help him get elected, if he kept driving traffic and boosting the company’s stock price,’ writes Amy Chozick, herself a Times reporter and the author of a new book, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.

The excerpt about Bill Clinton's conspiracy theory was reported by The Daily Beast.

Bill Clinton (seen left with his wife, Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine on November 9, 2016) reportedly spread a rumor that The New York Times made a secret deal with Donald Trump to destroy her chances of becoming president

Clinton reportedly believed that the then-publisher of the Times, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr (above), made a deal with Trump to undercut Clinton's chances of winning because having Trump in the White House would boost readership

The Times has been attacked by Clinton supporters who say the ‘newspaper of record’ devoted excessive coverage to the email server investigation. On October 29, the Times devote three front-page, above-the-fold stories about the probe - 11 days before the election

Chozick, who covered Hillary Clinton’s campaign from the outset, details the Clintons’ anger at the Gray Lady over what they perceive as anti-Clinton bias.

The Times has come under repeated attack from Clinton supporters who say the ‘newspaper of record’ devoted excessive coverage to the email server investigation.

When then-FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress 11 days before the election announcing that the bureau was revisiting the probe into the email server, the Times wrote three front-page, above-the-fold stories about it in its October 29 issue.

Comey and the FBI eventually decided to close the investigation, but it is believed that the letter from October 28 did enough damage to Clinton that it cost her precious votes in key states, paving the way for Trump’s shock victory just days later.

The publisher of the Times during that period was Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr, 66.

On January 1 of this year, Sulzberger Jr stepped down as publisher, handing the reins over to his son, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, 37.

The revelations are detailed in a new book by Times reporter Amy Chozick, who covered the Clinton campaign for the newspaper

Sulzberger Jr has remained as chairman of The New York Times Company, the parent entity which owns the newspaper as well as other assets.

Though there is no evidence of a conspiracy, having Trump in the White House appears to have helped the Times financially.

The newspaper reported that in 2017 it generated over $1billion in revenue from digital-only subscriptions.

During that same year, overall revenue jumped 8 per cent to $1.7billion.

Trump, of course, has repeatedly attacked ‘the failing’ Times for its coverage.

On Saturday, the president tweeted that the newspaper’s White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman, was a ‘third rate reporter’ and a ‘Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with.’

The tweet was in response to a story that Haberman co-authored in which she quoted two known associates of Trump as saying that the president has treated his longtime lawyer and confidante, Michael Cohen, ‘like garbage.’

Cohen, who is under criminal investigation, is believed likely to turn on his boss and cooperate with the federal government if faced with charges.

Chozick's book contains other revelations about the doomed Clinton campaign.

She writes that during the primaries, Clinton aides wanted to 'maximize' Trump because they perceived him as the weakest Republican candidate who would give her the best chance to win the election.

That was one of several assumptions that ultimately proved false.

Vice President Joe Biden, who had a fundraising network and Pennsylvania roots that helped connect him to some of the voters Clinton once ham handedly mocked as 'deplorables,' confided he stayed out of the race partly out of concern to what Clinton's vaunted network would do to him.

According to the book, Clinton 's campaign held a strategy session on how to build up Trump when he was a reality TV star hurling insults at rival Republicans

'Biden had confided (off the record) to the White House press corps that he wanted to run, but he added something like "You guys don't understand these people. The Clintons will try to destroy me",' Chozick writes.

In another poor decision, Chelsea Clinton poured French champagne into people's glasses at about 9 pm, hours before her loss, according to Chozick.

She says someone told her it was Veuve Clicquot, according to a preview in The New York Times.

When the election was lost, it fell to campaign manager Robby Mook to deliver the bad news to the candidate.

'I knew it. I knew this would happen to me,' Clinton responded, according to the book. 'They were never going to let me be president.'

The defeat was the culmination of a long campaign where a retinue of mainly female reporters contended with a candidate who kept herself at a distance, dismissing the email scandal, and eager to have it end.

Some of them were calling it 'Hillary's Death March to Victory.'

Among Chozick's other observations: 'Her only clear vision of the presidency seemed to be herself in it.'

Trump's attacks were able to set the tone for the campaign.

'Hillary had berated our pea-size political brains for being uninterested in policy. Now, Trump had made her as devoid of substance as he was,' she writes in a Washington Post excerpt.

She also writes of Clinton: 'For all the lesbian theories, Hillary enjoys nothing more than flirting with a handsome, preferably straight man,' mentioning Ed Henry of Fox News getting called on in front of a skein of female reporters.