Clinton cites convenience in email use

Turned in work messages, deleted personal, she says

“I fully complied by every rule I was governed by,” Hillary Rodham Clinton said of her emails while secretary of state.
“I fully complied by every rule I was governed by,” Hillary Rodham Clinton said of her emails while secretary of state.

UNITED NATIONS -- Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded Tuesday that she should have used government email as secretary of state and acknowledged she had destroyed tens of thousands of emails in her private account that she described as personal in nature.

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AP

Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a news conference Tuesday at the United Nations, takes questions about her private email account while secretary of state. Clinton cited convenience as a factor but conceded that she should have used a government server.

The disclosure that Clinton used a private email address and server for her government business has raised questions about whether Clinton fully complied with federal laws requiring officials to preserve written communications involving government affairs.

By using her own email server, with an Internet address traced back to Clinton's family home in Chappaqua, N.Y., she gained more control over her email than she would have had using a government server.

But on Tuesday, Clinton insisted she had not violated any federal laws or Obama administration rules.

"I fully complied by every rule I was governed by," Clinton said in a 20-minute news conference that marked her first comments on the matter.

The former senator from New York said the private server had been installed to ensure digital security for her husband, former President Bill Clinton. She said it was still guarded by the Secret Service and had never been hacked.

Clinton said her emails complied with government record-keeping and archiving regulations because she sent most of her work-related messages to government employees on their government accounts. Those emails would have been "captured and preserved" on the recipients' systems, she said.

Her use of a private email account "was widely known to the over 100 Department and U.S. government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent," according to a statement later released by Clinton's office.

At the news conference, the former secretary of state described her decision to rely exclusively on her private account as a matter of convenience and a way to avoid carrying multiple electronic devices.

"I thought using one device would be simpler; obviously, it hasn't worked out that way," she said.

Clinton added that she had not used her personal email to discuss any classified information and said her server would remain private. She said she had exchanged 60,000 emails, half of which were personal and were discarded.

"They were about personal and private matters that I believed were in the scope of my personal privacy and particularly that of other people," she said.

"They had nothing to do with work. I didn't see a need to keep them."

She described the destroyed communications as ones related to her daughter's wedding, her mother's funeral, her yoga routine and other matters.

"Everything that could be in any way connected to work is now in the possession of the State Department," Clinton said.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus blasted Clinton's comments as "completely disingenuous."

"No one but Hillary Clinton knows if she handed over every relevant email," Priebus said Tuesday.

Clinton served as the nation's top diplomat throughout President Barack Obama's first term. Late last year, nearly two years after she left the administration, she turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in response to an agency request.

The department said Tuesday that it would publish online the full set of emails provided by Clinton. The department also said it would give reasons for any redactions, in accordance with Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

"We will review the entire 55,000-page set and release in one batch at the end of that review to ensure that standards are consistently applied throughout the entire 55,000 pages," said the State Department spokesman Jen Psaki. "We said we expect the review to take several months; obviously that hasn't changed."

Psaki said the previous three secretaries of state also had responded to requests from the department to turn over any work-related emails they had sent using private accounts.

Madeleine Albright, who held the job during President Bill Clinton's second term, said she did not use email during her tenure.

Colin Powell, who headed the department during President George W. Bush's first term, said he had used a private email account for some State Department business but had not printed hard copies of any messages and no longer had electronic access to them because the account had been closed.

Condoleezza Rice, Bush's second secretary of state, said she "did not use personal email for official business," Psaki said.

Clinton called her delivery of more than 30,000 emails to the State Department "unprecedented."

About 300 of those emails will be released to the public before the rest of those provided by Clinton. Those emails have been turned over to a congressional committee investigating the 2012 deaths of four Americans at a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, when Clinton was head of the State Department.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican leading the investigative committee, said Clinton's comments Tuesday left him with more questions than answers.

"There remain serious questions about the security of the system she employed from a national security standpoint," Gowdy said.

Gowdy said Clinton would be called to appear before his committee at least twice. One time will be to "clear up" Clinton's use of personal email and to establish that the committee has a complete record of Clinton's four-year tenure, Gowdy said.

The committee plans to call Clinton to appear at a separate public hearing to answer questions specifically regarding Libya and the September 2012 attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, Gowdy said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the senior Democrat on the Benghazi committee, said he was glad Clinton addressed the email issue in person, and he welcomed the State Department's decision to release Clinton's emails related to Benghazi as soon as possible.

Cummings said he hopes the Benghazi panel "will return to its purpose of investigating the attacks in Benghazi instead of attempting to impact the 2016 presidential election."

Clinton is considered the Democratic front-runner for president, though she has not declared her candidacy.

Clinton delivered remarks earlier Tuesday at a women's empowerment event at the United Nations. She then made her way to a nearby hallway where dozens of reporters and photographers were awaiting her first formal news conference since leaving the State Department in early 2013.

Before the question-and-answer session, Clinton's only comment on the matter had been a late-night post on Twitter last week saying she wanted the State Department to the release her emails.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Julie Pace, Matthew Daly, Steve Peoples, Bradley Klapper, Jack Gillum and Stephen Braun of The Associated Press; by Amy Chozick and Alan Rappeportof The New York Times; and by Paul Richter, Vera Haller, Mark Z. Barabak and David Lauter of Tribune News Service.

A Section on 03/11/2015

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