CNBC host John Harwood cited a "lack of transparency" as a reason Monday for why Hillary Clinton used a private, unsecured server as secretary of state, directly refuting what Clinton claimed to him when they talked on Friday.
Clinton boasted about being the "most transparent public official in modern times" when Harwood interviewed Clinton last week because she'd released thousands of emails from the server. That has set off its own furor as thousands of them turned out to contain classified information, including 104 emails Clinton wrote herself.
"I said make them all public," Clinton said of her emails. "I’ve been the most transparent public official in modern times, as far as I know. When that process is undertaken, then other agencies get to weigh in and get to say, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t think that should come out now,’ whether or not the State Department, or if I were in some other agency, agrees. That is par for the course."
Conservative pundit Larry Kudlow, appearing on CNBC's Power Lunch, sarcastically praised the "scoop" Harwood unearthed when Clinton made that claim.
"She deleted 30,000 emails. John, I don't want to nitpick, but it just seems to me that's not really transparent," Kudlow said.
"I think what she's referring to is the release of all the emails that she deemed work-related that have been going through the process of the State Department and that have resulted in their identification ... as either classified or top-secret," Harwood said. "I think a lack of transparency may be the reason why she had the private email server in the first place. She wanted to protect her information.
"She says it was about convenience, only carrying one device. Most of the people that I've talked to who know her and have worked with her think it was about trying to keep tighter control over information. That has created a problem for her."