After an embarrassing media report on gender pay inequities at the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton team fretted they were sitting on a similar problem at the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidate, has made tackling pay equity between men and women a major theme of her campaign.

“I wanted to flag something that came out of our research on pay equity at the Clinton Foundation. There are huge discrepancies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they went here next.”

More from LifeZette TV

MORE NEWS: President Trump Announces Exact Time He Will Make His Supreme Court Pick

The Feb. 24, 2015, email from Democratic consultant Ian Mandel to Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook was made public on Saturday by WikiLeaks. The email is one of about 50,000 Podesta emails WikiLeaks has been posting daily since Oct. 7.

“Guys, given the story yesterday about pay equity at the State Department, I wanted to flag something that came out of our research on pay equity at the Foundation,” Mandel wrote. “There are huge discrepancies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they went here [to the Foundation] next.”

Do you agree that protesting is acceptable, but rioting is not? Yes No Email Address (required) By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement Results Vote

Mandel then attached research documenting the problem. Only three out of the 11 highest paid employees of the Clinton Foundation in 2013 were women.

[lz_ndn video= 31572415]

The average salary of the highest paid men was $294,000 in 2013. But the average salary of the highest paid women was $182,000, a staggering difference of $112,000.

MORE NEWS: College Professor Uses Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Shameful Attack On Conservatives

The aides’ research found the Foundation’s median salary of the highest paid men was $346,000, while the median salary of the highest paid women was $185,000, a $190,000 difference.

It’s unclear what news story Mandel was referring to in his email. But it’s likely he was in part reacting to a Feb. 23, 2015, report from the Washington Free Beacon, which reported that Clinton paid her Senate female staffers less than men. Clinton was a U.S. senator from New York from 2001 to 2009.

[lz_third_party align=center includes=https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/453688842621431808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

The Free Beacon reported that then-Sen. Clinton offered a median annual salary for a woman of $15,708.38 less than that of male worker. That meant for about every dollar a man made working for Clinton, a woman made only 72 cents.

The Clinton team realized they had made themselves vulnerable on the issue. Mook forwarded the email to Podesta.

While federal law says men and women must receive pay equity, employers have leeway on paying for experience and time in workforce.

[lz_related_box id=”234145″]

The 2015 incident wasn’t the first time Clinton has been embarrassed on the pay equity issue.

LifeZette reported on Oct. 21 that men did indeed out-earn women at the Clinton Foundation in 2011 based on a pay schedule also contained in an email released by WikiLeaks. That pay schedule showed men earned $68,164 compared to $64,118 for women, on average at the Clinton Foundation. The median salary was higher for men, $55,200 compared with $50,000.

Yet the Clintons continue to use the issue against the Republicans. Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, blasted Republican candidate Donald Trump in an interview with Glamour magazine over the summer for his failure to highlight equal pay on his website.