WikiLeaks is slowly releasing emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta. The Podesta emails give an inside look into the Clinton campaign and show that Clinton’s presidential strategy has played out exactly as planned, including the campaign’s early initiative to “elevate” Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to the top of the GOP pack.

WikiLeaks released a series of emails from John Podesta that reveals the inner workings of the Clinton campaign. Within the email dump, one particular email showcases the Clinton campaign’s strategy for “elevating” certain GOP candidates to the top of the pack in a bid to discredit “more-established” candidates. The full strategy can be read by clicking the “attachments” section on the WikiLeaks email and downloading the “Strategy on GOP” PDF provided.

The email from April 2015 shows exactly how calculated the Clinton campaign was from the very beginning. In fact, Clinton’s campaign strategy was so accurate that a full year before the GOP field would be narrowed to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign had detailed their plans to “elevate” the two candidates, along with Ben Carson, in a bid to split the Republican Party and force the more established candidates to become “more conservative” in speech and discredit themselves with communities of color, women, and millennials.

Clinton team instructed DNC with strategic goal of “elevating” Trump two months before he declared his candidacy https://t.co/DAmWNq9K0f pic.twitter.com/mrGTyCycSu — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 9, 2016

The Clinton strategy referred to the 2012 Mitt Romney campaign in which the Democrats note that the party inflicted damage on itself before the election even took place.

“There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012.”

To ensure the GOP was battling itself, the Clinton campaign identified three key “pied piper candidates” that would help reign in the GOP’s downfall. These candidates were listed as Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson.

“The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to: • Ted Cruz • Donald Trump • Ben Carson We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”

Interestingly, it seems the strategy worked and the Clinton master plan was well underway. In the end of the bitter GOP presidential primary battle, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz came out on top, just as Clinton had hoped. The second portion of the strategy was digging up “any information on scandals or ethical lapses” that could be found on the GOP nominees to be used against them later in the campaign.

The Hillary Clinton campaign noted that they weren’t going to be picky when it came to digging up dirt on the candidates.

“In this regard, any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.”

The strategy also noted that “the goal” for the campaign is to “have a dossier on the GOP candidates on the likely attacks HRC will face.” The campaign could then use the aforementioned “ethical lapses” of GOP candidates to “boomerang” it back into the Republican presidential field.

The email ended by noting that the Clinton campaign’s goals were “a mirror” of those of the DNC. This further suggests that the Democratic National Committee was establishing a path to victory for Clinton long before Bernie Sanders was out of the race. In fact, with the email dated at April of 2015, it would be over a year before Sanders dropped out of the race, but that didn’t stop the Clinton campaign from noting that the DNC was “mirroring” their efforts.

“Again, we think our goals mirror those of the DNC.”

What do you think about Hillary Clinton’s strategy and how well it has played out to date?

[Featured Image by Matt Rourke/AP Images]