As former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used to handle all federal business correspondence through her insecure personal email account and a home-based private server. It was said that Clinton refused to execute any form of correspondence through a government-issued email address.
Clinton's attorney informed Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, that the former Secretary of State has handed over all of her work-related emails to the State Department. She has also chosen to delete her personal mails and readjust the settings in her account, which allows mails to be retained in the server for a maximum of 60 days.
Gowdy sees the move as an attempt to block anyone who tries to check the mails and find out whether she has deleted significant conversations.
"In light of the Secretary's unprecedented email arrangement with herself and her decision nearly two years after she left office to permanently delete all emails, we will work with the leadership of the House of Representatives as the Committee considers next steps," said Gowdy.
Gowdy had sought that Clinton surrender the server to a third party in order to allow a neutral culling of government records from personal mails.
Clinton has "also summarily decided to delete all emails from her server, ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest," stated Gowdy.
At a press conference held earlier in the month, Clinton revealed that she has deleted 30,000 personal emails from her account. All of the remaining mails are business-related and that she has already turned them over to the State Department to be used as a public record.
While there is no clear information on the exact date that Clinton deleted her emails, Gowdy said that she must have deleted them in October when she was asked by the State Department to hand them over.
Clinton may be found guilty of deleting evidence and destroying U.S. government property if indeed she deleted the emails after the initial request. If so, then the finding could affect Clinton's bid in the White House.
Photo: Marc Nozell | Flickr
