Podesta on NYT Clinton emails story: ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire’

John Podesta wasn’t happy with the New York Times giving Hillary Clinton’s private email server page one treatment, as newly released WikiLeaks emails detail how her campaign responded to the revelations of the server.

Podesta said in a March 21, 2015, email released by WikiLeaks Sunday that the New York Times was saving a story on Hillary Clinton’s personal email server for a “nice front page Sunday Times liar, liar, pants on fire, all smoke no substance piece.”

Clinton’s Director of Communications Jennifer Palmieri then responded asking to confer with other staffers to “come back to the group with a plan?”

The email exchange is part of a large trove of emails stolen from Podesta’s email account. It provides a glimpse into how the Democratic nominee’s campaign team handled revelations of Clinton’s private email server that she used while secretary of state.

The campaign argued over how to respond to media requests on March 20 seeking comment on Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asking for Clinton to hand her email server over to a State Department watchdog. Gowdy was chairman of the House panel that was investigating the terror attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans.

At first, Clinton staffers sought a more hardline approach to Gowdy’s request.

An email from spokesman Nick Merrill shared the initial response that said the campaign had turned over all of her work emails and asked the State Department to release those emails.

The statement said that the request was unprecedented and is “beyond normal practice, and anything further is simply playing politics.”

Top aide Cheryl Mills, who was Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, believed that the statement about playing politics was “too much.” Merrill agreed to cut the last line.

Clinton had deleted more than 30,000 emails that her attorneys deemed were personal.

An FBI investigation unveiled that Clinton had sent classified information through her private email server, but Director James Comey declined to pursue criminal charges.