What did Obama know about Clinton emails and when did he know it?

WASHINGTON (SBG) - Another batch of emails was released Tuesday by the website WikiLeaks.

It’s the 18th batch of emails WikiLeaks has released belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. This one raises questions that go all the way to the top - the White House - what President Barack Obama did and didn’t know regarding his secretary of state using a private email server to conduct government business.

It dates back to a March 8, 2015 interview on CBS.

CBS correspondent Bill Plante asked President Obama, “When did you first learn that Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. government for official business while she was secretary of state?”

President Obama replied, “The same time everybody else learned it - through news reports.”

The interview seemed to cause panic among top Clinton officials; an email from Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to Podesta says, “We need to clean this up - he has emails from her - they do not say state.gov.”

At a White House press briefing after the story aired, Press Secretary Josh Earnest seemed to try to clarify.

“The point that the president was making is not that he didn’t know Secretary Clinton’s email address - he did - but he was not aware of the details of how that email address and that server had been set up,” Earnest said at the March 9, 2015 briefing.

Critics say the mixed messages go against President Obama’s promise to have the most transparent administration in history.

So far, more than 30,000 emails have been released.

Neither Podesta nor the Clinton campaign has confirmed or denied their authenticity, and many top officials say they were obtained by WikiLeaks via Russian hackers.