Hillary Clinton ignored congressional inquiries about her use of a personal email account nearly two years ago when she was still secretary of state.
In December 2012, Darrell Issa, who was then chair of the House committee on oversight on government reform, sent Clinton a letter asking: “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?”
The letter, first reported by the New York Times, also went on to ask Clinton about State Department policies on retaining emails from personal accounts, which were used to conduct official business.
As revealed last month, Clinton had used a personal email address, hdr22@clintonemail.com, for all official business while secretary of state and did not have a government account.
Clinton later said she had turned over roughly 30,000 emails to the State Department, which dealt with official business, but had deleted another 30,000 emails which she said were personal in nature. The controversy has dogged the former secretary of state, who launched her second presidential campaign on Sunday.
Issa did not receive a response until March 2013, after Clinton had stepped down as secretary of state. The State Department then only provided what the Times called “a description of the department’s email policies” without directly answering Issa’s question about whether officials used personal email to conduct official business.
The revelation of the letter also comes as a congressional committee investigating the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi is working to schedule Clinton’s testimony before the panel. The committee’s questions are expected to focus not just on Benghazi but on Clinton’s use of personal email and a private server.
