An official from the State Department has spoken up about concerns regarding the private email account and server that Hillary Clinton used during her time as secretary of state, potentially violating the Federal Records Act and shielding herself from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Joyce Barr, the chief freedom of information officer for the State Department, said the use of personal email accounts to conduct government business is "not acceptable."
After being grilled by Sen. John Cornyn (R., Tex.) about the ethics of Clinton’s actions, Barr said that she would "theoretically" be very concerned by the "premeditated and deliberate" actions Clinton took to avoid intrusion into her communications.
Barr made the concession after Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) began to question her at the Senate Judiciary committee hearing.
"So it is a completely unacceptable process going forward and it should have been retrospectively," Tillis said.
"Going forward, yes sir," Barr said.
Barr said the State Department now had made it clear what employees’ responsibilities are in terms of record keeping. She highlighted training, department notices, telegrams, and discussions with directors as actions taken to remedy the systematic transparency problem the State Department faces.
"These kinds of things just absolutely undermine the confidence of the American people," Tillis said. "It was just a bad decision. I hope that we go so far to say if you do this in the future then you get fired.
"If the person at the top is doing it then you can pretty much count on the reality that over some time people at every level of the agency have."
The acknowledgement of wrongdoing follows weeks of denial from the White House and State Department.