Clinton
says 'sorry' for email confusion, says she wasn't thinking
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[September 05, 2015]
By Alistair Bell and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Friday she was sorry that
her use of a personal email account while secretary of state had caused
confusion, and blamed herself for "not thinking a lot" about the matter
when she took the job.
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In her most contrite comments yet about an issue that has plagued
her White House bid, Clinton said she had made a mistake by not
using a government email account. But she maintained she had done
nothing wrong and did not apologize explicitly for using a private
email account for her work as America's top diplomat.
"At the end of the day I am sorry that this has been confusing to
people and has raised a lot of questions but there are answers to
all these questions," the former first lady told MSNBC in an
interview.
Clinton, front-runner to be the Democratic Party nominee in the
November 2016 election, has faced steady criticism from political
opponents since it emerged in March that she used her own email
account on an unsecured private server in her New York home for
official business. Republicans say she flouted rules on
record-keeping and transparency.
"I certainly wish that I had made a different choice and I know why
the American people have questions about it," said Clinton, who was
secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. "I take responsibility. I
should have had two accounts, one for personal and one for
work-related."
Doubts over Clinton's trustworthiness have damaged her numbers in
opinion polls, allowing liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to
narrow the gap with her before the first contests early next year to
pick the Democratic Party nominee for the election.
Clinton's slump in polls has also given space for a possible run by
Vice President Joe Biden. Biden's elder son, Beau Biden, died of
brain cancer in May aged 46 and the vice president said on Thursday
he is trying to determine whether he has the emotional energy for a
White House bid.
Clinton said she used the personal email account for convenience and
did not give the issue much thought when she started her job as
secretary of state.
"I was not thinking a lot when I got in. There was so much work to
be done. We had so many problems around the world. I didn't really
stop and think what kind of email system will there be," she said.
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Clinton said that while she should have acted differently, she had
done nothing wrong. "It was allowed and it was fully above board.
The people in the government knew that I was using a personal
account," she said.
The FBI is now investigating the security of the private server and
any classified information on it.
Reviews by Reuters of Clinton emails released to the public under a
judge's orders found 87 email threads that the State Department has
marked to show they include information shared in confidence by
foreign government officials, from prime ministers to spy chiefs.
U.S. government regulations say this sort of information, whether
written or spoken, must be classified from the start and handled
through secure, government-controlled channels.
The Republican National Committee said Clinton was only sorry about
being the center of so much controversy over her emails.
"What's clear is Hillary Clinton regrets that she got caught and is
paying a political price, not the fact her secret email server put
our national security at risk," RNC spokesman Michael Short said in
a statement.
(Editing by John Whitesides and Frances Kerry)
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