Last week, news broke that while Hillary Clinton was heading the State Department, she conducted all official business on a personal email address that was backed up on a server in her house. She's been accused of breaking the rules on official-record keeping, which require that her emails be archived. Secretary Clinton finally spoke out Tuesday about the ongoing scandal, affirming that she'd done nothing against the rules. She also stressed that since leaving her post, she's complied with all requests to make her emails public.
Clinton began by saying she'd chosen to use her personal address because it was simpler: "First, when I got to work as Secretary of State, I opted for convenience... because I thought it would be easier to use one email address on one device," she said. "Looking back, it would have been smarter to have two devices from the very beginning." She also stressed that after she'd left the State Department, she was asked to hand over her emails and complied; her work-related emails "totaled roughly 55,000 printed pages," Clinton explained. She added that she left out emails about personal matters, such as planning her daughter's wedding.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell asked Clinton how we were to trust that she hadn't failed to disclose any emails — since Clinton herself had been the arbiter. The former Secretary emphasized that she'd been very thorough and had decided to "err on the side of providing anything that could possibly be seen as work-related." Clinton began the presser with a statement about the fight for rights for women and girls — echoing her talk earlier in the day at a UN event. Clinton also condemned a letter Republican Senators recently sent to Iran.
Opponents have accused Clinton of breaking the spirit — if not the letter — of the law, and have attacked her lack of transparency. Supporters, on the other hand, have pointed out that she's not the only public official to have used a personal email address (though she is seemingly one of the few to have no official email). While the bulk of criticism has come from Republicans, Clinton has been hit by both sides.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT