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title: Here's How Hillary Clinton's Lawyers Chose Which Emails To Hand Over
description: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's lawyers did not review all of her emails manually, but instead used automated searches.
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article:published_time: 2015-03-10T20:55:36.000Z
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![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt31c59cc0bb0bd38f/69878308e53aba6d4b4d7fff/hillary-clinton5.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9)


# Here's How Hillary Clinton's Lawyers Chose Which Emails To Hand Over

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ztAw0Ra0.m3u8" -->
## Video: Hillary Clinton Addresses Email Controversy

[Watch (HLS stream): Hillary Clinton Addresses Email Controversy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ztAw0Ra0.m3u8) (2:47)

![Hillary Clinton Addresses Email Controversy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ztAw0Ra0/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2015-03-10. Hillary Clinton Addresses Email Controversy_


by 

[Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/)


## Zeke Miller


Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:40 PM UTCPublished: Mar 10, 2015 8:55 PM UTC

by 

[Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/)


## Zeke Miller


Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:40 PM UTCPublished: Mar 10, 2015 8:55 PM UTC

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that her attorneys reviewed more than 62,000 emails she sent while in office to find work-related correspondence to comply with a department request to turn over records from her time in office.

After her press conference, her office released a nine-page explainer which said that her lawyers used automated searches and a scan of senders and recipients to navigate the emails, rather than reviewing each one manually.

According to the statement, 30,490 emails were provided to the State Department, and the remaining 31,830 were deemed by her attorneys to be private, personal records, that Clinton later “chose not to keep.”

Here’s how Clinton’s office says her lawyers examined her email records:

---

> “”

---


Here’s the full statement from Clinton’s office:

\[scribd id=258299784 key=key-rTsPnXDMHWkJW5649Smi mode=scroll\]


## Transcript

But I know, there have been questions about my emails. So I want to address that directly. 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 for my personal emails instead of two. 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. No one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy.

I took the unprecedented step of asking that the State Department make all my work related emails public for everyone to see. In. Going through the emails, there were over sixty thousand, in total. Sent and received, about half were work related and went to the state department. And about half were personal. And I feel like once the American public begins to see the emails. They will have an unprecedented insight into a high government official's daily communications which I think will be quite, interesting. I have absolute confidence that everything that could be in anyway. Connected to work is now in the possession of the State Department, and I have to add, even if I'd had two devices which is obviously permitted.

Many people do that. You would still have to put the responsibility where it belongs, which is on the official. My direction to. Conduct the thorough investigation was to err on the side of providing anything that could be possibly viewed as work- related. That doesn't mean they will be by the State Department once the State Department goes through them. The system we used was set up for President Clinton's office. And. It had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches. I feel that I have taken unprecedented steps to provide these work related emails.

They're going to be in the public domain. And I think that Americans will find that interesting, and I look forward to having a discussion about that.

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