Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was advised to consider resigning in 2012 after President Barack Obama was caught on a live microphone telling then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he would have more flexibility on missile talks after his re-election.
The revelation comes from the batch of Clinton emails released Thursday by the State Department.
In an email dated March 26, 2012 with the subject line "If true," Mark Penn, who has done polling for both Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, warns, "This could be about the stupidest thing ever said by a president in foreign policy."
Penn's email was a reference to Obama's private comment earlier that same day during a summit in Seoul, South Korea. Obama was caught on microphone telling Medvedev that then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should "give me space" because "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
"I understand," Medvedev responded. "I will transmit this information to Vladimir."
The video went viral, and Penn warned Clinton it could hurt her politically.
"To explicitly say that he is laying low on nuclear defense policies because of his election right now and tell your opponent that is to politicize all foreign policy, evidence weakness that can be exploited by others, and undermine the administration's credibility," he wrote.
He advised Clinton to distance herself and "even consider resigning if it's the case — American foreign and strategic nuclear policy can't be one way before an election and another after it — and certainly you can't tell your opponents that or from al qaeda on down they will figure out how to use that."
Penn admitted he might be overreacting, and foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan agreed, telling Clinton in another email, "It is not good — at all, but I think Mark may be pushing it a bit far."
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