Fortunately for the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest was traveling with the president when the State Department released emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
His luck ran out Monday, when Fox News White House Correspondent Kevin Corke was quick to ask Earnest about the emails and whether it was consistent with the Obama administration’s stance on transparency. Earnest grimaced, saying he did not miss the questions.
"The expectation that we have is that everyone who works in the administration, no matter how senior or how junior, would be in compliance with the responsibilities that they have to make sure any work that they do on their personal email account is archived consistent with the standards by the National Archive and Records Administration," Earnest said.
Earnest said Clinton had turned over thousands of pages of emails and applauded her on her statement that she wants the emails to be made public.
Corke fired back, saying it could be seen as "problematic" because she left emails out and that there was material the State Department deemed classified after they were turned over.
Earnest defended Clinton, saying she and members of the campaign took the right steps to turn over emails relevant to her work at the State Department. Corke asked if Earnest was aware that there were emails missing and that the emails were public information and not something that should have been handled by her and her staff.
Earnest said Clinton was acting within the spirit of the administration’s commitment to transparency and referred Corke to talk to the Clinton campaign about the steps that they took to archive the emails.