Congress Reportedly Asked Clinton About Private Email Use 2 Years Ago

Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded Tuesday that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state... Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded Tuesday that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state, saying her decision was simply a matter of "convenience." (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) MORE LESS
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Hillary Clinton did not respond to a letter from congressional investigators sent two years ago that asked whether she conducted business at the State Department using a private email account, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

News reports about Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email account during her tenure as secretary of state bubbled up last month and eventually pressured the presidential hopeful to hold a news conference in which she acknowledged the practice. In that news conference, Clinton revealed that she deleted a trove of personal emails she deemed unrelated to her work at the State Department.

But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had asked Clinton about the use of private email directly in December 2012, more than two years before the issue came to a head, according to the report.

Issa was investigating how the Obama administration handled employee’s use of personal email accounts at the time. A letter from Issa to Clinton, provided to the Times by an anonymous congressional official, read: “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business? If so, please identify the account used.”

Issa received no response from the State Department until after Clinton resigned her cabinet post, according to the newspaper. The agency’s response reiterated its email policy.

A Clinton aide said in a statement to the Times that Clinton’s private email usage “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.”

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  1. Oh for Christ’s sake, how is this “news”? It’s already been reported that she was asked by Issa about private email use in 2012. Is the New York Times really hurting that bad that they need to make click bait articles like this one? And TPM fell for it? SMH

  2. Yea, like HRC is the only person who ignores letters from Issa. I think he’s on more spam filters than that prince in Nigeria.

  3. Anyone feel like no one really cares about this story?

  4. Only people who would never vote for her anyway care about this.

    If she HAD used a separate account for private emails, she would still have been deciding what was public and what wasn’t… and we’d have the same stupid attacks that the private account “must” have nefarious hidden secrets.

    Also, State Dept procedures TOLD staff to decide for themselves what emails should be permanently archived and what should be deleted even on the official server. She, like everyone else, would still have had full control over what was and wasn’t preserved.

    In other words, there’s no there there.

  5. It’s pretty much like so many other GOP “scandals”…they desperately want something that rises to the level of Watergate so they go on fishing expeditions and don’t just try to be better politicians and public servants.

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