Hillary Clinton was challenged by Meet the Press host Chuck Todd Sunday on her initial explanation for why she turned over her emails, pointing out her description of there being a blanket request of the last four secretaries of state didn't jibe with a Washington Post report that it was actually because the State Department had found a "discrepancy" with her records.
The Washington Post reported:
Throughout the controversy over her use of a private e-mail system while she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton has described her decision last year to turn over thousands of work-related e-mails as a response to a routine-sounding records request.
"When we were asked to help the State Department make sure they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me, I’m the one who said, ‘Okay, great, I will go through them again,’ " Clinton said Sunday on CBS’s "Face the Nation." "And we provided all of them."
But State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton’s characterization. They said the request was not simply about general record-keeping but was prompted entirely by the discovery that Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system. They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014, at least three months before the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors to provide their e-mails.
Clinton said the "discrepancies" were in State's own record-keeping.
"When the committee -- I think the eighth or ninth committee -- investigating Benghazi asked for information from the State Department, they were doing a survey and they found discrepancies in their record-keeping," she said. "Not in my records per se, but in their overall record-keeping. There were gaps, and that's why they sent the letter, and that's why we did the overall comprehensive search for everything. And it got us to the same place. We looked through everything. We gave them everything work-related."
Full exchange:
CHUCK TODD: You had said just now in one of your explanations that you provided these records because State asked of all secretaries of state. As you know, there was a report earlier this week in the Washington Post that said that isn't quite how it happened. In the summer of 2014, they discovered the discrepancy with your records, and they wanted to make a request, and then it became a formal request of the last four secretaries of state. Can you explain that discrepancy?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, we have explained that. The campaign has explained it.
TODD: What is it?
CLINTON: Well, when the committee -- I think the eighth or ninth committee -- investigating Benghazi asked for information from the State Department, they were doing a survey and they found discrepancies in their record-keeping. Not in my records per se, but in their overall record-keeping. There were gaps, and that's why they sent the letter, and that's why we did the overall comprehensive search for everything. And it got us to the same place. We looked through everything. We gave them everything work-related. In fact, we gave them so much, they've already told us they're sending back 1,200 because they were clearly personal and not work related.