The State Department’s inspector general has uncovered a dozen instances of illegal email usage since 2010, revealing a pattern of email abuse that emerged in the years when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
“Not only did former Secretary Clinton violate record-retention policies, she failed to effectively manage her department, leading to a pattern of neglect for the law by State Department employees,” said Daniel Epstein, executive director of the Cause of Action government watchdog non-profit, which compiled the reports.
For example, the agency’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations was faulted in March 2014 for storing files in personal emails. Many of the files were marked with unclear classification labels, causing confusion among staff who were trying to preserve the records.
A September 2013 inspection of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs revealed staff had struggled to consistently use government email and often ended up saving files to their personal emails and computers.
“Unless the bureau addresses this issue, important data needed for policy analysis and archival research will not be available in the future,” the inspector general said.
State Department officials in a number of U.S. embassies around the world, from Thailand to Saudi Arabia, had relied on personal email to transmit records from 2010 to 2014. The inspector general repeatedly advised against the illegal practice, warning the State Department that such activity could cause important records to be lost forever.
Despite the litany of criticism over the use of personal files and emails, few agency staff seem to have faced punishment for storing sensitive government materials there.
The ambassador to Kenya, Scott Gration, was pressured to resign after a 2012 inspector general report revealed his extensive use of private email and his controversial management style.
Clinton has come under intense scrutiny after news that she relied exclusively on her personal email while secretary of state came to light in a New York Times article Monday.
