Hillary Clinton said she “was not thinking a lot” when she chose to forgo a government e-mail account in favor of a private one during her first days as secretary of state.
The Democratic presidential fron-trunner sat down with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday, with the ongoing saga surrounding Clinton’s e-mail scandal taking center stage.
Clinton continued to insist she set up the private e-mail account out of “convenience” and that everything she did was “fully above-board.” She also said former secretary of state Colin Powell did the same thing — something Mitchell disputed, given that Powell also used a government e-mail account.
“Did anyone in your inner circle say, ‘This isn’t such a good idea, let’s not do this?’” Mitchell asked.
“You know, I was not thinking a lot when I got in,” Clinton replied. “There was so much work to be done, we had so many problems around the world. I didn’t really stop and think what kind of e-mail system there will be.”
#share#“Does it raise judgment questions?” Mitchell asked.
“Well, I don’t think so,” Clinton said. “I think the facts are pretty clear that we had a lot of hard work — hard choices to make in those four years. And I’m very proud of the work we did, I’m very proud of all the people that I worked with. I think we really served our country well.”
#related#“And now the State Department has everything that they could have,” she continued. “So at the end of the day, I’m sorry that this has been confusing to people and has raised a lot of questions. But there are answers to all these questions, and I will continue to provide those answers.”
Clinton’s private server was set up at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., by Bryan Pagliano, an IT specialist who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and followed her to the State Department in 2009. Pagliano is expected to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before the House Benghazi Committee about the private server.