Hillary Clinton: 'I think I went above and beyond' email requirements
The most contentious work-related email debate of this month (at least) continued today, as likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference (video) at the UN headquarters. The topic? Her use of a self-hosted email address during her time as Secretary of State. She gave a statement, then answered a few questions from the press, claiming that her choice to use a personal address was done for convenience. Last month the former First Lady told Re/code that she uses both an iPhone and a Blackberry, and said today that "looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning."
According to Clinton, the email server she was using was set up for her husband while he was President and protected by the Secret Service, although she did not mention where it was actually hosted. As far as the emails it contained, Clinton said that in response to a request by the State Department last year, her staff filtered out personal messages including ones about her daughter's wedding and emails to her husband, and handed "anything that could be possibly work-related" over for archiving. From her statement, it does not appear that she plans to open up the server for review by a third party, and even said she felt like she went "above and beyond" the requirements at the time. Clinton based that statement on her belief that any government employee, even if they were using the hosted email, could choose what actually remained on the servers. She also said that she did not send any classified material through her personal account.
Even after her press conference, the controversy does not appear to be over, with some citing a cable sent out during her time as Secretary of State directing others to avoid conducting official business on personal email accounts, and other pointing out that President Clinton reportedly has only ever sent two emails. While Hillary Clinton considers announcing her candidacy for president in 2016, clearly she hopes providing access to the emails already provided to the State Department will be enough to satisfy the curious. She said that "no one wants their personal emails made public", but she may not have much choice if the outcry for an outside review of the missing messages continues.
