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Emails sent by Clinton from her personal account weren't archived in official government records.

By Josh Gerstein

3/2/15 11:04 PM EST

Thousands of emails Hillary Clinton generated as secretary of state were not archived as official government records because she used a private email account to conduct State Department business, the State Department acknowledged Monday.

Aides to the former secretary of state turned over 55,000 pages of emails from her personal account to the State Department in December at its request, a department official said.

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Clintons use of the personal account for work-related emails and the State Departments effort to gain control over the information were first reported by The New York Times. Clinton did not use a State Department email account, the paper reported.

Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The Times story suggested that the private email trove came to light as the State Department worked to respond to requests for information from a special House committee probing the deaths of four Americans in a 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

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Hillary Clinton used private email account for State Department business

Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private e-mail account for her official government business when she was secretary of state and did not routinely preserve and turn over those e-mails for government records collection, the State Department said Monday.

Clinton has turned over thousands of e-mails to the department from her private account, a step that was first reported by the New York Times late Monday. The private account came to light when the department sought records from Clinton and other former secretaries who have held the post during the e-mail age.

Some 300 of Clintons recovered e-mails were then turned over to a congressional committee investigating the 2012 deaths of four Americans at U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation, Psaki said in a statement. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with e-mails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those e-mails, we produced about 300 e-mails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.

A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night. The spokesman, Nick Merrill, told the Times that Clinton has complied with the letter and the spirit of federal rules on the retention of official documents.

It was not clear why Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, created the private account. But the practice appears to bolster long-standing criticism that Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have not been transparent.

Hillary Clinton should release her e-mails, said Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who is also weighing a presidential bid. Hopefully she hasnt already destroyed them.

Campbell noted that Bush created a Web site, at http://www.jebemails.com, providing public access to his electronic communications while in office. Governor Bush believes transparency is a critical part of public service and of governing, she said in a statement.

Clintons aides reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal e-mails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department, the Times reported. In total, 55,000 pages of e-mails were turned over, the newspaper reported.

Clinton was not the first secretary of state to use a private account. The State Department said Clintons successor as top diplomat, John F. Kerry, is the first secretary to use a standard government e-mail address ending in state.gov.

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Hillary Clinton used private e-mail for government business at State Dept.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three otherAmericans.

By Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times News Service

Monday, March 2, 2015 | 8:30 p.m.

WASHINGTON Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials correspondence be retained as part of the agencys record.

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.

It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Clintons advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department.Clinton stepped down from the secretarys post in early 2013.

Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.

It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario short of nuclear winter where an agency would be justified in allowing its Cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business, said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

A spokesman for Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the letter and spirit of the rules.

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Hillary Clinton used private email for State Department business

Washington Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have violated federal records laws by using a personal email account for all of her work messages, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The newspaper said the likely Democratic presidential candidate conducted all her official business during her four-year tenure at the State Department on a private email account.

It added that Clinton, who stepped down as secretary of state in 2013, recently handed over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in response to a department effort to comply with record-keeping practices.

Federal law says letters and emails written and received by federal officials are government records that must be retained, according to the paper. Regulations at the time Clinton served as secretary of state called for emails on personal accounts to be preserved as well, the paper said.

The Times said most experts believed private email accounts should only be used for official government business in emergencies, according to the Times.

A spokesman for Clinton told the Times that Clinton was complying with the "letter and spirit of the rules" and had expected her emails would be retained. He declined to detail why she chose to conduct business from her personal account, the Times said.

The State Department did not immediately return a request for comment from Reuters. Clinton's spokesman could also not be immediately reached for comment.

Clinton is widely considered the front-runner for next year's Democratic presidential nomination if she decides to enter the race.

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Hillary Clinton illegally used a private email account, reports Times

(NBC NEWS) -The U.S. State Department said Monday that Hillary Clinton had recently provided it with emails from her time as Secretary of State.

The department spoke out after the New York Timesreportedthat Clinton had only used a personal email address to conduct government business while at the state department and possibly violated requirements that her emails be preserved.

The Times reported that Clinton, widely expected to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, never even used a State Department email address during her four years there. Further, aides did not act to preserve her emails on government servers as required by federal law, the Times reported.

"In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the department with emails spanning her time at the Department," Harf said, adding that the State Department reviewed those emails and produced about 300 of the correspondences for a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and Clinton's communications about the attack.

Harf did not confirm that Clinton had used only a personal email account to conduct business as secretary of state nor whether Clinton had provided all of the government business emails that were sent or received on her personal account.

Jeb Bush, who has said he is eyeing the Republican nomination for president, used the opportunity to taunt Clinton, calling for her unclassified emails to be released and playing up his publishing of thousands of emails from his eight years as governor of Florida on awebsite.

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Hillary Clinton used only personal email account as Secretary of State: Report