Josh Earnest Seeks To Clarify When The President Found Out About Hillary’s Private Email Account, And It’s A Little Different Story Now…
[guest post by Dana]
When asked in an interview this weekend when he learned about Hillary’s private email system, the president answered, “The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”
Today, in yet another administration what-he-meant-to-say clarification, Josh Earnest “revised” the White House’s statement:
“The president, as I think many people expected, did over the course of his first several years in office trade emails with his secretary of state,” Earnest said. “I would not describe the number of emails as large, but they did have the occasion to email each other.”
“The point that the president was making is not that he didn’t know Secretary Clinton’s email address, he did,” Earnest said. “But he was not aware of the details of how that email address and that server had been set up or how Secretary Clinton and her team were planning to comply with the Federal Records Act.”
When pressed on whether Obama was aware that Clinton was conducting business over her private email, Earnest responded, “the point is the president did email with Secretary Clinton. I assume that he recognized the email address that he was emailing back to,” before saying that the important issue is whether she complied with the Federal Records Act.
Thus, the President of the United States and the Secretary of State emailed one another over an unsecured server and gave no thought to hackers or national security being put at risk.
Bad news: If foreign hackers have Hillary's emails (they do), they also have the President's email address since Obama corresponded w/ her.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 9, 2015
Facing mounting pressure to offer a more substantial explanation regarding her use of private email for official business, Hillary Clinton will be talking about the scandal this week:
It wasn’t clear what forum Mrs. Clinton will use to address the matter, but she plans to take questions from the media, said one person familiar with the planning. Her next public appearance is Tuesday, when she gives a speech at a United Nations event, and she could speak with reporters after that.
With plans to formally declare her candidacy in April, she is being pressured by Democrats to address the matter.
Can’t wait!
–Dana
