The NY Times reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, according to State Department officials. She may have violated federal requirements that officials' correspondence be retained as part of the agency's record.
Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. "It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business," said attorney Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the "letter and spirit of the rules."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @04:13PM
Is she the first secretary of state to do this?
Email use by secstate is relatively new and precedent is spotty at best.
However, the one thing that does seem clear is it that her use of email was in contradiction to official whitehouse policy. [washingtonpost.com] That's not legally binding, but at best it creates the appearance of corruption and when it comes to politics the mere appearance is bad enough because it undermines the public's trust.