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Clinton says it ‘might have been smarter’ to use State e-mails Clinton says it ‘might have been smarter’ to use State e-mails
(about 2 hours later)
UNITED NATIONS — Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Tuesday that she had erred in using only a private e-mail server for work correspondence at the State Department, saying that she sent about 60,000 e-mails from her private account during her four-year tenure as secretary of state. UNITED NATIONS — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that she regretted using only a private e-mail server for work-related correspondence as secretary of state, saying that she sent more than 60,000 e-mails from her private account in a four-year span but that none contained classified material.
Scrambling to extinguish a growing controversy over her unconventional use of a private e-mail server ahead of the expected launch of her 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton said “there were no security breaches” with her private account. Scrambling to extinguish a growing political controversy ahead of the expected April launch of her 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton held a hastily-arranged news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, her first in more than two years. She was lawyerly and measured, but also defiant in insisting that she did not violate any administration rules despite White House guidelines instructing employees to use official e-mail accounts.
“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail,” Clinton said in a rare news conference at the United Nations. She added, “I fully complied with every rule.” Clinton said she exclusively used her private e-mail account out of “convenience,” so as not to have to carry two separate phones. But she conceded that it “might have been smarter” to use a separate government account to conduct her State Department business.
Clinton said she already had deleted thousands of personal e-mails from her server but that she has provided all of her work-related e-mails to the State Department, which has begun a review and is preparing to release them on a publicly accessible Web site in coming months. “Looking back, it would have been better for me to use two separate phones and two e-mail accounts,” Clinton said. “I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way.”
Clinton’s comments came at what was her first news conference in more than two years here at the United Nations. She gave a lawyerly, measured statement about her e-mails and fielded a series of questions before stepping away from the podium after about 20 minutes. Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server located in her New York home attracted criticism from Republicans and some Democrats about the security of her correspondence, as well as her judgment and penchant for secrecy. Clinton’s office said Tuesday that her use of a private e-mail account was “widely known” by more than 100 U.S. government colleagues with whom she communicated, and that she only communicated with one foreign government official, who was from the United Kingdom.
Clinton said that in hindsight it would have been “smarter” to use two e-mail accounts, one personal and one for government business, and that she opted not to for convenience. Between March 2009 after she was sworn in as secretary and her departure in early 2013, Clinton sent 62,320 e-mails from her private account. Clinton’s office said 31,830 were deemed by her and her attorneys to be personal in nature.
“Looking back, it would have been better for me to use two separate phones and two e-mail accounts. I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way.” Last December, Clinton turned over the remaining e-mails to the State Department, totaling roughly 55,000 pages in printed form. The department has begun a review of the documents and announced Tuesday that it would release them on a publicly accessible Web site in coming months.
Clinton said that she sent or received a total of more than 60,000 e-mails from the account while secretary of state, with about half related to her work at the State Department and half personal. In her 20-minute news conference, Clinton said she had deleted e-mails that she believed were “within the scope of my personal privacy” — including, she said, correspondence about daughter Chelsea’s wedding, her mother Dorothy’s funeral, her yoga routines and family vacations.
Clinton said she deleted e-mails that she believed were “within the scope of my personal privacy” — including, she said, correspondence about daughter Chelsea’s wedding, her mother Dorothy’s funeral and yoga routines — and that they were not provided to the State Department for review. Clinton defended having made herself the arbiter of which e-mails to keep for archival purposes and which to delete.
“No one wants their personal e-mails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy,” Clinton said. “For any government employee, it is that government employee’s responsibility to determine what’s personal and what’s work-related,” Clinton said. She added, “No one wants their personal e-mails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy...I had no reason to save them.”
Clinton had been under mounting pressure, including from Democratic allies, to address questions about her exclusive use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state, a violation of Obama administration guidelines. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a member of the House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, called for a “third party” to review the e-mails.
An hour earlier in Washington, State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said the department is undergoing a review of 55,000 pages of e-mails that Clinton has handed over that could take several months. All of the e-mails that meet the standards for public release will be available in a single batch on a Web site once the process is completed, Psaki said. “It’s just not appropriate for Hillary Clinton to be the final arbiter of what should be turned over,” Pompeo said. “This is truly about getting the facts out for these poor families and the American people.”
Clinton held the news conference at the United Nations following a speech she delivered at a Women’s Empowerment Principles event. Clinton said “there were no security breaches” with her private account, which was connected to a family server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Clinton’s office would not detail the level of encryption, but said there were “robust protections” in place and that upgrades were employed over time.
At that gathering, where she was warmly welcomed as a “future president,” Clinton said that “the full participation of women and girls is the great unfinished business of the 21st century.” Marking the 20th anniversary of her landmark address in Beijing at the World Conference on Women, she said progress had been made toward equality, but lamented that “We’re still not there yet.” “I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail,” Clinton said. She added, “I fully complied with every rule that I was governed by.
Still, the e-mail story overshadowed Clinton’s long-planned remarks on women. Behind the scenes, Clinton’s aides and U.S. officials scrambled to speed up the process and secure entry for reporters, but the scene outside the hulking headquarters building was chaotic. In the wake of last Monday’s revelation that she had conducted State Department business over private e-mail, Clinton tried to remain above the fray. She tweeted that she wanted the public to see her e-mail, but refused to comment on the matter in her public appearances and waved off reporters’ questions on Monday.
Word of her planned appearance quickly spread among reporters already gathered in New York for Clinton events pegged to International Women’s Day. But her office did not confirm plans for the news conference until about 11:30 a.m. But after pressure mounted, including from Democratic allies, for her to more aggressively respond, Clinton was compelled to shift strategy and hold a news conference — her first in more than two years.
Rather than staging the news conference at an easily accessible venue, such as a Manhattan hotel, Clinton scheduled it inside the high-security U.N. headquarters building. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) both called on Clinton to personally address her e-mail practices. President Obama also did not come to Clinton’s defense in an interview over the weekend, while his White House tried to distance itself from the controversy by stating that Clinton did not follow administration guidelines against using private or commercial e-mail for government business.
Securing credentials for the United Nations is a laborious process that typically takes days at best, leaving members of the media scrambling to gain access Tuesday morning. The line for credentials wrapped the block outside the cramped U.N. office where all badges are issued. A lone staffer, beleaguered but polite, was handling all press requests. Badges in hand, reporters then waited in a long line to pass through security. Privately, senior Democrats have been wringing their hands at what they consider a botched response by Clinton and her still-skeletal political operation, fearing that her silence fed suspicions that she had something to hide.
The scene drew immediate criticism from Republicans, who accused Clinton of trying to block access to her news conference. The e-mail controversy overshadowed two days of carefully choreographed events aimed at celebrating Clinton’s lifelong commitment to empowering women and girls. The events are part of the thematic buildup to the expected launch of her official campaign.
“Hillary Clinton’s response to her e-mail scandal is already turning into another exercise in limiting transparency,” Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement. “She and her team had perhaps hundreds — if not thousands — of options for a venue for today’s press conference on her secret e-mail scandal, but Clinton instead chose one of the most difficult places for reporters to get access to: the U.N.” At the Women’s Empowerment Principles event at the U.N. earlier on Tuesday, Clinton was warmly welcomed as a “future president.”
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill responded in a statement, “Before we climb on board the RNC’s Malarkey Express let’s remember that this is where a large number of press have long-planned to be today for the Secretary’s speech. We’ve been working double-time to make this work with the help of USUN, and want to be as inclusive as possible.”’ But elsewhere in the U.N.’s hulking headquarters, the scene was chaotic ahead of her news conference. Scores of journalists and a massive scrum of television waited hours in line to get credentials to access the high-security compound. At a stakeout location, a simple podium was set up for Clinton only a few feet away from a copy of Picasso’s Guernica, which gruesomely depicts the suffering of innocent civilians under fascism during the Spanish Civil War.
In the week since revelations of her use of a private e-mail account, Clinton has ignored the issue at multiple public appearances while surrogates defended her in media interviews and accused news outlets of unfairly demonizing her. Although her smile was tight-lipped at times, Clinton mostly appeared at ease if slightly exasperated. Hewing closely to her written talking points, she made no obvious blunders.
FACT CHECKER: The misleading Democratic spin on the e-mails Still, Republicans showed no signs of letting up their scrutiny, and focused in particular on her deletion of e-mails she considered personal.
The dynamic changed over the weekend, however, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Clinton should “step up and come out” to personally answer questions about the e-mail arrangement. Feinstein said Clinton’s “silence is going to hurt her.” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that Clinton was “disingenuous” in her news conference.
President Obama also did not come to Clinton’s defense in an interview over the weekend, adding to pressure on Clinton to clear up questions about why she set up the outside system. The White House has distanced itself from the controversy, stating that Clinton did not follow administration guidance against using private or commercial e-mail for government business. “If she had an ounce of respect for the American people, she would have apologized for putting our national security at risk for ‘convenience,’” Priebus said in a statement. “She would’ve agreed to hand over her secret server to an independent arbiter. . .She did none of that.”
On Tuesday, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in Senate leadership, called on Clinton to publicly explain her side of the story. “She should come forward and explain the situation,” he said on MSNBC. “I think it’s only fair to say to Hillary Clinton: Tell us your side of the story. . . . What did you put on this personal e-mail?” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who chairs the House Benghazi committee, said Clinton’s news conference left “more questions than answers” and that he would call her to appear before his committee at least twice.
Privately, senior Democrats have been wringing their hands at what they consider a botched response to questions about Clinton’s private e-mail usage. They have said they fear her silence fed suspicion that she had something to hide. “Without access to Secretary Clinton’s personal server, there is no way for the State Department to know it has acquired all documents that should be made public,” Gowdy said in a statement. He added that there remain “serious questions about the security of the system she employed from a national security standpoint.”
Clinton limited her personal response to a tweet late Wednesday night, saying she wanted the public to see her e-mails and had turned them over to the State Department for a review before their release. She had hoped otherwise to stay above the fray, but the pressure within her party appears to have forced Clinton to shift strategy and answer questions from reporters. The Clinton e-mail revelations have given new life to Gowdy’s probe into the Benghazi attacks that left four U.S. officials dead. Although a trove of Clinton’s e-mails were turned over to the committee months ago, Gowdy has alleged that she must be hiding more related to Libya and vowed to issue subpoenas.
The e-mails issue — coupled with recent revelations that the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments while she was secretary of state — mushroomed into a test of Clinton’s leadership and overshadowed a series of women’s events leading up to her formal entry into the presidential race. State’s Accountability Reviews Board, which investigated the Benghazi attacks, said following release of its report in late 2012 that it had been given “unfettered access to everyone and everything, included all the documentation we needed.”
The issue also has tested Clinton’s strategy of remaining on the sidelines of the official 2016 presidential contest as long as possible. As the undisputed front-runner for the Democratic nomination, Clinton has had the luxury of picking which issues to address while keeping most details of her forthcoming campaign secret. The board asked for all pertinent information, including e-mails, Thomas R. Pickering, the former senior diplomat who led the inquiry, said in an interview Tuesday. “I have no recollection of seeing any Hillary Clinton e-mails,” he said.
The controversies have thrown Clinton off her carefully planned week to showcase her lifetime of advocacy on behalf of women and girls — one of the foundations of her emerging campaign platform. She participated in back-to-back events Monday and Tuesday related to the 20th anniversary of her U.N. address in Beijing declaring that “women’s rights are human rights.” Pickering said he recalled no e-mails at all in the documents reviewed by the board, although he “could not say categorically” that there were none. “We could have received some” from other State Department officials that were examined by staffers, he said, “but I don’t recall any from the secretary.”
Clinton’s e-mails during her four years at the State Department were on a private domain registered at her upstate New York home and were not archived by the government as now required. The controversy has tested Clinton’s strategy of remaining on the sidelines of the official 2016 presidential contest for as long as possible. As the undisputed front-runner for the Democratic nomination and without a serious opponent, she has had the luxury of picking which issues to address while keeping most details of her forthcoming campaign secret.
The unorthodox arrangement gave Clinton unprecedented control over the paper trail from her time in public service and meant that her communications were not automatically included in public records searches or legal queries. Several likely GOP presidential contenders, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, have sharply criticized her handling of the e-mails issue.
Clinton turned over a trove of 55,000 pages of e-mails last year at the State Department’s request. The trove did not include every e-mail sent from Clinton’s private account. An aide said some were deemed personal. Most of the 55,000 pages are communications between Clinton and other State Department officials, the aide said last week. Asked what impact the controversy may have on the timing of a possible campaign announcement, Clinton said, “With respect to any sort of future issues, I trust the American people to make their decisions about political and public matters.”
Rucker reported from Washington. “I feel that I’ve taken unprecedented steps to provide these work-related e-mails,” she continued. “They’re going to be in the public domain. And I think that Americans will find that, you know, interesting, and I look forward to having a discussion about that.”
Rucker reported from Washington. Karen DeYoung and Carol D. Leonnig in Washington contributed to this report.