Hillary Clinton on Friday doubled down on her defense of the private email server she used to shield her government communications while secretary of state, in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
“I certainly wish that I had made a different choice,” Clinton acknowledged of the email arrangement that has sparked a national controversy. Still, she said she can be trusted to avoid sending out classified information on her private server.
“I’m so careful about classified information,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said. “I take classified material very, very seriously.”
Although just a quarter of her work-related emails have been released to the public to date, 188 messages have been marked classified. State Department officials say the classifications were all made retroactively, but the intelligence community inspector general has disputed this claim.
Clinton insisted people in the government knew she was using a private server exclusively, repeating statements that other high-level officials used similar set-ups in the past.
The former secretary of state’s poll numbers have steadily declined in the face of an FBI investigation into her email activities, as well as three separate congressional inquiries.
Two aides involved with the transmission of now-classified material on the server were forced to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi this week.
