Clinton email practices called ‘not acceptable’

Washington — A highranking State Department official said Wednesday that it is “not acceptable” for any agency employee to conduct government business on a private email server as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did.

Joyce Barr, the agency’s chief freedom of information officer, made the comment under questioning from Republican senators who used a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on open records laws to attack Clinton over her email practices.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-texas) said Clinton’s approach amounted to a “premeditated and deliberate” attempt to avoid open records requirements. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said anyone who took such an approach should be fired and asked Barr whether it would be considered acceptable.

Barr said she had not been aware of Clinton’s decision to conduct all her State Department email on a private server but that the agency has now made it clear to employees that such an approach would not be acceptable. “I think that the actions that we’ve taken in the course of recovering these emails have made it very clear what people’s responsibilities are with regard to record-keeping,” she said. “We continue to do training, we’ve sent department notices, telegrams, we’ve talked to directors and I think the message is loud and clear that that is not acceptable.”

Clinton, who is running for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, has defended using a personal email account while serving as secretary of state as a matter of personal convenience. She says she has turned over to the State Department all work-related emails — more than 30,000 of them — although House Republicans investigating the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, are demanding more. They insist the server itself should be examined by a third party.

A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign declined comment. Clinton has agreed to testify on Capitol Hill later this month at the request of the special committee investigating the Benghazi attacks.