Hillary Clinton admits official email use would be ‘better’

Hillary Clinton

has conceded that she should have used a government email address while serving as US secretary of state.

Ms Clinton told a press conference at the United Nations she "opted, for convenience, to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the state department" to carry only one mobile device. "Looking back it would have been better to use two separate phones and two separate email accounts."

Ms Clinton said all her work-related emails would be released to the public, adding that the publication would give “unprecedented insight into a high government official’s daily communications, which I think will be quite interesting”.

Minutes before Ms Clinton’s remarks, US state department officials told reporters emails sent by Ms Clinton would be posted to a website after a set given to them by her inner circle had been reviewed. However, the officials said the process would take “several months”.

About 300 redacted emails relating to the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic station in Benghazi, Libya, are reportedly to be the first selection posted. The state department did not specify what proportion of Ms Clinton's archive would be published.

"We will review the entire 55,000-page set and release in one batch at the end of that review to make sure that standards are consistently applied," Jen Psaki, the state department spokeswoman, told a briefing in Washington.

Private address

Controversy has mounted since it was revealed last week Ms Clinton did not use an official government email address during her four years at the state department. She instead conducted all official business using a private address under the ClintonEmail.com domain.

Until yesterday, her response had been limited to a single tweet, which left questions unanswered. “I want the public to see my email,” Ms Clinton posted last week. “I asked state to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.”

Data experts have questioned the security of her private email setup, which was detached from government servers. Republicans in Congress, journalists and transparency advocates are demanding all messages relating to her work as America's most senior diplomat be disclosed in response to ongoing inquiries in Washington and public records requests.

Legal violation

Some allege Ms Clinton may have violated government regulations, if not federal laws. The backchannel meant her inner circle has been able to sift through email records for potentially embarrassing messages before handing them over to state department archives.

Officials previously said Ms Clinton’s team produced more than “55,000 pages” of relevant emails. But it remains unclear how many messages, if any, have been held back.

Barack Obama and his advisers have sought to distance themselves from the controversy. Stressing that his own emails comply with all demands under presidential records laws, Mr Obama's advisers have argued Ms Clinton's camp is responsible.

A new poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that 86 per cent of potential Democratic primary voters could see themselves supporting Ms Clinton, while only 13 per cent could not.

Her 73 per cent net approval rating was more than twice that found for any other potential presidential candidate in her party. – (Guardian service)