NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton, under attack for using a personal email address to conduct U.S. State Department business, defended the practice yesterday as a matter of “convenience,” but her comments failed to calm critics, who accused her of secrecy.
Holding her first news conference since leaving her administration post two years ago, Clinton conceded she wished she had used a government email address as secretary of state but said she violated no rules and did not send classified material through the private account.
Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has come under fire for using an email server from her New York-area home and a personal account as the top U.S. diplomat. Critics raised concerns that the arrangement allowed her to hide important facts about her tenure and put her correspondence at a security risk.
“I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two,” a self-assured Clinton told more than 200 reporters crowded into a U.N. corridor.
