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The House select committee on Benghazi, which first discovered her use of a personal email for official business, will send the subpoenas to the state department. Republicans who have already accused her old department of a cover-up over the attack will pounce on any suggestion that Mrs Clinton is failing to cooperate fully with their investigation.

The AP noted that most individuals who operate their own email servers are technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they want to take control of their Internet communications. No other official of her seniority is known to have gone to such extreme lengths to control emails involving government operations.

The former first lady has not commented on her email habits since it was revealed that she used a private account with the address hdr22@clintonemail.com for all communications during her four years as secretary of state. The AP traced that address back to a private email server registered under a possible pseudonym at her Chappaqua home by reviewing Internet records.

"Operating her own server would have afforded Clinton additional legal opportunities to block government or private subpoenas in criminal, administrative or civil cases because her lawyers could object in court before being forced to turn over any emails," wrote the wire service's Jack Gillum and Ted Bridis.

"And since the Secret Service was guarding Clinton's home, an email server there would have been well protected from theft or a physical hacking."

A spokesman for Mrs Clinton did not respond to requests seeking comment from the AP about the arrangement. The former secretary of state, who is expected to announce her candidacy in coming months, did not address the issue during a speech at the 30th anniversary gala of Emily's List, an abortion rights political pressure group.

The latest revelation provided fresh political ammunition for Republican foes that Mrs Clinton is a controlling secrecy-obsessed figure. Leading Democrats struggled to explain her email set-up even and privately acknowledged dismay while publicly trying to rally to her support.

The NYT revelation that Mrs Clinton exclusively used a personal account for official business raised questions about whether she preserved all her work-related emails, as required by the Federal Records Act.

But her spokesman, Nick Merrill, said that Mrs Clinton complied with the both letter and spirit of the law because her advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails to decide which ones to turn over to the State Department after the agency asked for them.

Several media organisations have reported that their requests for official Clinton emails under the US Freedom of Information Act have been held up for years with no explanation. The AP noted that since her resignation in 2013, the state department would have to negotiate with Mrs Clinton to turn over any messages that it could not recover from the inboxes of federal employees she emailed.

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Hillary Clinton ran State Department email operations from private internet server at home