WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton said Friday her use of a private email system at the State Department wasn’t the “best choice” and acknowledged she didn’t “stop and think” about her email set-up when she became President Obama’s secretary of state in 2009.
The Democratic presidential front-runner said in an interview with NBC News that she was immediately confronted by a number of global hotspots after joining the new Obama administration as its top diplomat and didn’t think much about her email after arriving at her new job.
“You know, I was not thinking a lot when I got in. There was so much work to be done. We had so many problems around the world,” Clinton said. “I didn’t really stop and think what kind of email system will there be?”
But Clinton did not apologize for her decision when asked directly, “Are you sorry?” Instead, she again said she wishes she had “made a different choice” and that she takes responsibility for the decision to use a private email account and server based at her home in suburban New York.
She added it was a choice that should not raise questions about her judgment.
“I am very confident that by the time this campaign has run its course, people will know that what I’ve been saying is accurate,” Clinton said, adding: “They may disagree, as I now disagree, with the choice that I made. But the facts that I have put forth have remained the same.”
Republicans criticized Clinton’s unwillingness to apologize for the decision and said it underscored polls that have shown large numbers of people questioning her trustworthiness. “What’s clear is Hillary Clinton regrets that she got caught and is paying a political price, not the fact her secret email server put our national security at risk,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
The conversation about emails led off a wide-ranging interview that included Vice President Joe Biden’s interest in a potential Democratic primary bid, Clinton’s plans to address the Iran nuclear deal and her views of Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Following a summer in which both Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination, drew large campaign audiences, Clinton sought to cast her candidacy as one rooted in tackling the problems “that keep families up at night.”
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