Hillary Clinton's top aide asked her staff whether the Democratic presidential candidate should stop taking press questions to keep them from overshadowing the campaign's policy platform.
Politico reports the question is raised in a May 2015 email leaked by WikiLeaks on Wednesday, in which Clinton's campaign vice chairwoman Huma Abedin asked staffers:
"Can we survive not answering questions from press at message events[?] ... Her [David Dinkins Forum] speech and immigration message broke through because we didn't take questions[.]
"Her community banks message got lost because she answered questions about the foundation and emails.
But Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta wrote back: "If she thinks we can get to Labor Day without taking press questions, I think that's suicidal."
Clinton went 275 days without holding a formal press conference before taking questions at a brief session with reporters on Sept. 5.
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