Hillary Clinton was battered with questions by CBS host John Dickerson on Sunday about new revelations from her private email server.
Appearing on Face The Nation, Clinton was asked about ordering an aide to send information through "nonsecure" channels and her hypocritical surprise that another State Department employee was not using a government account at the time.
The Free Beacon reported:
In the June 2011 email exchange, Jake Sullivan, then-Secretary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, discussed forthcoming "TPs," appearing to refer to talking points, that Clinton was waiting to receive.
"They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax. They’re working on it," Sullivan wrote of the forthcoming information in an email dated June 17, 2011.
"If they can’t, turn it into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure," Clinton wrote Sullivan in response the same day.
"Aren't you ordering him to violate the laws on handling classified material there?" Dickerson asked.
"No, not all, and as the State Department said just this week, that did not happen, and it never would have happened, because that's just not the way I treated classified information," Clinton said. "Headings are not classification notices, and so, oftentimes, we are trying to get the best information we can, and obviously what I'm asking for is whatever can be transmitted, if it doesn't come through secure, to be transmitted on the unclassified systems. So, no, there is nothing to that, like so much else has been talked about in the last year."
Dickerson said the email was "striking" because it suggested she knew how to get around restrictions for sending classified information.
"You're saying there was never an instance, any other instance, in which you did that?" Dickerson asked.
"No, and it wasn't sent," Clinton said. "This is another instance where what is common practice, namely, I need information. I had some points I had to make, and I was waiting for a secure fax that could get me the whole picture, but oftentimes there's a lot of information that isn't at all classified, so whatever information can be appropriately transmitted, unclassified, often was. That's true for every agency in the government and everybody who does business with the government."
Clinton said the "important point" was she had "great confidence" she wasn't in breach of government regulations on classification.
"In fact, as the State Department has said, there was no transmission of any classified information, so it's another effort by people looking for something to throw against the wall … to see what sticks, but there's no 'there' there," she said.
Dickerson wasn't finished, though, pointing to a 2011 email showing Clinton expressing surprise that another State Department staffer wasn't using a government account, even while she was flouting rules by using a private email to do business.
That was "what you were doing," Dickerson said, so "why was that a surprise to you?"
"Well, I emailed two people on their government accounts, because I knew that all of that would be part of the government system, and indeed, the vast majority of all my emails are in the government systems, so that's how I conducted the business," she said. "I was very clear about emailing anything having to do with business to people on their government accounts."
In other words, Clinton did not answer the question about her fairly blatant hypocrisy.