Hillary Clinton on Tuesday apologized for the scandal surrounding her private State Department email server, and said in a new interview with ABC News that she takes full responsibility.
Using an unauthorized and unsecured email server “was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility,” she told David Muir in a “World News Tonight” interview that will air later this week.
Clinton’s apology marked a sharp departure from when she said earlier this month that she owes no apology for using a private email server when she worked the top position at State.
“[W]hat I did was allowed,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press, adding that everything she did was permissible under State Department regulations, and stating that she would not apologize for her past actions.
It also came after the New York Times reported that Clinton’s camp had a new strategy on how to make her more likable and relatable to potential voters. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod mocked the plan to appear more authentic as something out of the Onion, a satirical newspaper.
Prior to her interview with the AP, the closest that Clinton had come to saying sorry for her controversial email server was to apologize for causing confusion.
“At the end of the day, I am sorry that this has been confusing to people and has raised a lot of questions, but there are answers to all these questions,” Clinton told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell last week. “And I take responsibility and it wasn’t the best choice.”
The former secretary of state told Mitchell that she first started using personal email accounts when she served as a U.S. senator. When she got to the State Department, Clinton explained, she merely continued the practice.
“I did all my business on my personal email [in the Senate],” she said. “I was not thinking a lot when I got in [to the State Department]. 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 email system will there be.”
“This was fully above board, people knew I was using a personal email, I did it for convenience. I sent emails that I thought were work related to people’s .gov accounts,” she added.
When she left the State Department, Clinton had her team delete approximately 30,000 allegedly “personal” emails from her server. State officials were never given the chance to review if the now-deleted emails were indeed “personal” or whether they contained sensitive information.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has since launched a criminal investigation into whether Clinton’s team sent or received classified information over her non-secure “homebrew” server. Though Clinton eventually surrendered her server to federal investigators, it was revealed later that the item she turned over was blank and contained no information.
Depending on the outcome of the FBI’s current investigation, further criminal charges could be brought against Clinton for possible mishandling top secret intelligence.
