John Podesta said Wednesday that daily Wikileaks' dumps of his emails in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election were meant to "divert attention, at least to give the anchors on Fox News something to talk about other than the 'Access Hollywood' tape."

"The data from your emails, your email dump came out only minutes after the 'Access Hollywood' [tape was released]," MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell said to Podesta, who served as Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE's campaign chairman, during an on-set interview on Wednesday.

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"Late on a Friday afternoon," replied Podesta.

"And just to set the context, most of those Wikileaks dumps were early in the morning to drive the news cycle here in the U.S.," Mitchell said. "So this was unusual from the get-go and you guys noticed it right away."

"Oh, absolutely. And I think it was done to try to divert attention, at least to give the anchors on Fox News something to talk about other than the 'Access Hollywood' tape," Podesta argued. "And I think that the question is whether there was coordination between the [Trump] campaign and Wikileaks, at least through intermediaries, about the timing of the release."

Just hours after a 2005 tape of Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE making lewd comments to an "Access Hollywood" host about groping women was released, emails from Podesta's hacked account were published by Wikileaks.

The email dumps, which put the Clinton campaign on the defensive, continued almost up until Election Day.