A full transcript of Hillary’s press conference on private use of emails:
I know there have been questions about my email, so I want to address that directly and then I will take a few questions from you. There are four things I want the public to know.
First, when I got to work as secretary of state I opted, for convenience, to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the state department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and my personal emails instead of two.
Looking back, it would have been better if I had simply used a second email account and carried a second phone. But at the time, this didn’t seem like an issue.
Second, the vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the state department.
Third, after I left office, the state department asked former secretaries of state for our assistance in providing copies of work-related emails from our personal accounts. I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work-related, which totalled roughly 55,000 printed pages, even though I knew that the state department already had the vast majority of them.
We went through a thorough process to identify all my work-related emails and deliver them to the state department. At the end I chose not to keep my private, personal emails, emails about planning Chelsea’s wedding or my mother’s funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends, as well as yoga routines, family vacations, the other things you typically find in inboxes. No one wants their personal emails made public. I think most people understand that and respect that privacy.
Fourth, I took the unprecedented step of asking that the state department make all my work-related emails public for everyone to see.
I am very proud of the work that I and my colleagues and our public servants did during my four years as secretary of state, and I look forward to people being able to see that for themselves.
Again, looking back, it would have been better for me to use two separate phones and two email accounts. But I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously it hasn’t worked out that way
