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.”
