The Republican National Committee on Thursday asked the Inspector General of the State Department to investigate former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email to conduct government business.
RNC Chief Counsel John Phillippe wrote in a letter that the investigation should focus on whether Clinton violated department policies or caused the department to violate the requirement to archive emails.
“The American public deserves to know whether one of its top-ranking public official’s actions violated federal law,” he wrote. “With transparency and openness in government being one of President Obama’s guiding principles, it is incumbent upon your office to determine the facts surrounding this issue. I urge you to launch immediately an investigation into Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email address and the Department of State’s policies regarding such use.”
Clinton, the likely frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, used a personal e-mail account to conduct government business during her four years at the State Department, which may have violated federal regulations, The New York Times reported Monday night.
Late Wednesday, Clinton addressed the issue after two days of controversy. At 11:35 p.m. she took to Twitter to say she wanted the emails released.
“I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible,” Clinton tweeted.
Emails from official government accounts are saved for public record but, according to the Times story, Clinton did not preserve her personal emails as required by the Federal Records Act.
In December, Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of personal e-mails to the State Department after her aides reviewed them and selected which pages to hand over.
"The State Department will review for public release the emails provided by Secretary Clinton to the Department, using a normal process that guides such releases,” State Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf wrote in a statement after Clinton’s tweet. “We will undertake this review as quickly as possible; given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete.”
Clinton’s use of a private email server raised questions among security experts about whether she might have compromised sensitive government information. And America Rising, conservative opposition research group, filed a freedom of information request for her emails.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush criticized Clinton for failing to release personal email used to conduct government business while she was secretary of state. “Transparency matters,” Bush tweeted late Monday. “Unclassified @HillaryClinton emails should be released.”
Bush, who is considering seeking the Republican nomination for president, released thousands of emails sent to him during his eight years as governor, even though they were from a personal account.
The public didn't see everything from Bush. The Miami Herald reported in January that he conducted all his communication on his private Jeb@jeb.org account and turned over only a hand-selected batch to the state archives when he left office.
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