White House Doublespeak on Emails

by Cory Fritz (Office of Speaker of the House John A. Boehner)

White House Doublespeak on Emails

White House Doublespeak on Emails

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United States House of Representatives

March 4, 2015

Speaker of the House John Boehner

White House Doublespeak on Emails

March 4, 2015 | Cory Fritz

Yesterday's New York Times report on Hillary Clinton’s use of personal emails as Secretary of State, uncovered by the House Benghazi Select Committee, continues to raise new questions about the Obama administration’s compliance with its own policies and the law.

Here’s how the White House says its policy is supposed to work:

“The administration policy that is effective here is that we–all of our work is conducted on work email accounts” – Jay Carney, 2011

Yet Jay apparently meant all work is conducted on work email accounts, except when it isn't – ever.

Per the NYT, Secretary Clinton “exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as Secretary of State” and “her aides took no action to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.”

And remember, Secretary Clinton isn’t the first administration official to flout transparency. Kathleen Sebelius used a “secret” address during her time as Secretary at Health and Human Services and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson infamously used a fake address and the alias “Richard Windsor.”

At yesterday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Josh earnest did his best to dodge and duck.

“Josh Earnest said Tuesday that it’s up to the State Department to handle how its employees use email correspondence to conduct official work,” National Journal reports. “[T]he White House thinks the State Department should handle all of the fallout.”

As Washington Democrats try to spin their way out of this mess, Republicans remain focused squarely on getting to the truth about what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.