In this photo taken Dec. 3, 2014, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at Georgetown University in Washington.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)
Hillary Clinton's exclusive use of a personal e-mail account to conduct government business during her four-year tenure as secretary of State may have violated federal regulations, The New York Times reported Monday night.
Only official accounts are automatically preserved for public record and, according to the Times 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."
In December Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of personal e-mails to the State Department, but only after Clinton's aides reviewed them and selected which pages to hand over, the Times reported.
USA TODAY's e-mails to Clinton's spokesman Nick Merrill have gone unanswered but Merrill told the Times that Clinton has been complying with the "letter and spirit of the rules." Merrill said Clinton was sending e-mails to other State Department officials, who were using government accounts, and therefore had "every expectation they would be retained."
Republicans have jumped on the report as an opportunity to criticize Clinton, who is considered the favorite to win the Democratic nomination should she choose to become a 2016 presidential candidate.
Jeb Bush, a likely contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, tweeted, "Transparency matters. Unclassified @HillaryClinton emails should be released. You can see mine, here. http://ift.tt/1EVpKn6," in response to the story.
"This latest development raises serious questions," Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said in a press release. "And it all begs the question: what was Hillary Clinton trying to hide?"
A September 2013 bulletin from the National Archive and Records Administration suggests federal employees "should not generally use personal email accounts to conduct official agency business." The bulletin suggests exceptions could be "emergency situations" or on occasions where the employee is contacted through their personal e-mail account.
Clinton left the State Department in February, 2013.
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