Clinton: I didn’t think about email system
Email decision shouldn’t raise more questions, she says.
The Democratic candidate says she was focused on work as secretary of state.
— Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday her use of a private email system at the State Department wasn’t the “best choice” and acknowledged she didn’t “stop and think” about her email set-up when she became President Barack Obama’s secretary of state in 2009.
The Democratic presidential front-runner said in an interview with NBC News that she was immediately confronted by a number of global hotspots after joining the new Obama administration as its top diplomat and didn’t think much about her email.
“There was so much work to be done. We had so many problems around the world,” Clinton said. “I didn’t really stop and think, what kind of email system will there be?”
But Clinton did not apologize for her deci sion when asked, “Are you sorry?” Instead, she again said she wishes she had “made a difffffffffffferent choice” and she takes responsibility for the decision to use a private email account and server based at her home in suburban New York. She added this should not raise questions about her judgment.
“I am very confifident that by the time this campaign has run its course, people will know that what I’ve been saying is accurate,” Clinton said, adding: “They may disagree, as I now disagree, with the choice that I made. But the facts that I have put forth have remained the same.”
Republicans criticized Clinton’s unwillingness to apologize for the decision and said it underscored polls showing large numbers of people questioning her trustworthiness. “What’s clear is Hillary Clinton regrets that she got caught and is paying a political price, not the fac t her secret email server put our national security at risk,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
After a summer in which Republican Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination, drew large audiences, Clinton sought to cast her candidacy as one rooted in tackling problems “that keep families up at night.”
Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs responded: “Bernie is doing more than attracting large crowds. He has a concrete set of proposals to take on the billionaire class and rebuild the disappearing middle class.”