Washington, November 3 (RHC)-- The White House will not release e-mails between President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, officials say. The e-mails between Obama and Clinton were discovered by the U.S. State Department when it was trying to release the former secretary's emails pertaining to into the attacks on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Obama's correspondence was forwarded to the White House for review, which has decided against the disclosure of those e-mails. "There is a long history of presidential records being kept confidential while the president is in office," a White House official said.

"It is a principle that previous White Houses have vigorously defended as it goes to the core of the president's ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel during his time in office and is central to the independent functioning of the Executive Branch."

Although the contents of the e-mails between Clinton and Obama have been kept secret, their assumed existence has been made public. In March, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged that the two "did have the occasion to e-mail one another" during Clinton's tenure as the Secretary of State.

White House officials also said that the decision to block the e-mails is not related to their content, but rather aims to defend the principle that presidents must freely seek their advisers' advice without fear that the conversations will be released during their time in office.

They added that the e-mails will eventually become public, but many years after Obama steps down as the president under the terms of federal records laws.

Obama, through refusing to release the e-mails, is following a famous precedent he and his predecessors have established. The U.S. president has, on numerous occasions, resisted Congress' efforts to turn over the president's private communications, which are exempt from Freedom of Information laws often used to obtain information from other parts of an administration.