--- title: White House: Clinton's Private Email Are Not Our Problem description: The White House said that reports that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email account are not its concern. canonical: https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-03T20:05:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:05:16.052Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House: Clinton's Email Are Not Our Problem og:description: Obama administration says it gave proper guidance. og:url: https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0cf124afc1c0fb24/698781e7428a9e687acc76a8/150303_em_hillaryemailscandal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 150303_EM_HillaryEmailScandal og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House: Clinton's Email Are Not Our Problem twitter:description: Obama administration says it gave proper guidance. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0cf124afc1c0fb24/698781e7428a9e687acc76a8/150303_em_hillaryemailscandal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House: Clinton's Private Email Are Not Our Problem by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Mar 3, 2015 8:05 PM UTC  Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham ClintonJason DeCrow—AP by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Mar 3, 2015 8:05 PM UTC A day after reports revealed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email account instead of a government address while in office, the White House said the dust-up is none of their concern. “Very specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees in the Obama Administration should use their official e-mail accounts when they’re conducting official government business,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday. Clinton’s exclusive use of private email raised [questions](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html?smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&bicmp=AD&smtyp=aut&bicmlukp=WT.mc%5Fid&%5Fr=1) about her compliance with the letter and spirit of the federal records act, which requires that all official correspondence be preserved by the department. Clinton’s staff turned over tens of thousands of pages of emails to the department just two months ago after it requested copies of her official correspondence. Earnest said the White House can’t say whether Clinton has been in compliance with requirements saying that “can be verified by the State Department.” “The policy as a general matter allows individuals to use their personal e-mail address as long as those e-mails are maintained and sent to the State Department, which if you ask Secretary Clinton’s team, that’s what they completed in the last month or two,” he said. “What Secretary Clinton and her team have done is they have complied with the guidelines,” he added later. ### See Hillary Clinton's Evolution in 20 Photos  Teenager: Hillary Rodham poses in her 1965 senior class portrait from Park Ridge East High School in Illinois. AP  Law School Student: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham pose for a snapshot at Yale Law School in 1972\. They married in 1975. Clinton Presidential Library  Mother: Clinton poses with her husband, Bill, then in his first term as governor, with their week-old daughter, Chelsea, on March 5, 1980. Donald R. Broyles—AP  Campaign Companion: Clinton celebrates her husband's victory in a Democratic runoff in Little Rock, Ark. on June 8, 1982. AP  Arkansas First Lady: Clinton is seen in her inaugural ball gown in 1985. A. Lynn—AP  Political Wife: Clinton celebrates her husband's inauguration in Little Rock on Sept. 20, 1991. Danny Johnston—AP  Dignitary: Clinton receives an honorary law degree from Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., on May 30, 1992. Chris Ocken—AP  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a meeting during the presidential campaign for her husband in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 4, 1992. Bill Sikes—AP  First Lady: Clinton appears at the MTV Inauguration Ball at the Washington Convention Center on Jan. 20, 1993. Shayna Brennan—AP  Second-Term First Lady: Clinton attends the Inaugural Ball after her husband was sworn in to a second term on Jan. 20, 1997. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  New York Senator: Clinton speaks at a press conference with female Democratic senators in Washington on June 21, 2006. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Committee Member: Clinton listens to the testimony of Lt. General David Petraeus to the Senate Armed Forces Committee at a hearing on Capital Hill in Washington on Jan. 23, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Candidate: Clinton holds a a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H., while running for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sept. 2, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Jan. 2, 2008. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secretary of State: Clinton kisses President Obama at a joint session of Congress in Washington on Feb. 24, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton joins Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 3, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Jan. 23, 2013. J. Scott Applewhite—AP  Author: Clinton attends a signing memoir, "Hard Choices," at a Costco in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2014. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Grandmother: Clinton holds her granddaughter Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on Sept. 27, 2014. Office of President Clinton/AP  Once and Future Candidate: Clinton speaks at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, on Sept. 14, 2014. Brooks Kraft—Corbis Earnest would not say whether President Barack Obama ever communicated with Clinton on her private account, but said if he had, it would be archived on the White House servers. Asked whether Clinton’s use of personal email had ever raised red flags inside the White House, which Obama has branded as “the most transparent in history,” Earnest said that was not up to them. “It is the responsibility of agencies to preserve those records,” he said. “These are their rules for them to manage,” he added, asked whether her use of private email could have been a security threat. Internet registration records show Clinton’s team registered a domain for her emails just days before President Barack Obama was sworn into office, and the same day the Senate took up her confirmation hearings to the post. Earnest said White House and other administration aides are encouraged to use their official emails only for ease of “Hillary Clinton benefits from something most federal employees don’t have: a team around them,” he said. Asked whether any other Cabinet-level official official uses a private email account for official business, Earnest said “You will need to check with each of the Cabinet agencies about that.” When asked if he was surprised by the revelation that Clinton didn’t maintain an official account while in office, Earnest replied, “I’m not surprised by anything.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/"},"headline":"White House: Clinton's Private Email Are Not Our Problem","datePublished":"2015-03-03T20:05:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:16.052Z","description":"The White House said that reports that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email account are not its concern.","url":"https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election topic","White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0cf124afc1c0fb24/698781e7428a9e687acc76a8/150303_em_hillaryemailscandal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0cf124afc1c0fb24/698781e7428a9e687acc76a8/150303_em_hillaryemailscandal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"150303_EM_HillaryEmailScandal","caption":"Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton","creditText":"Jason DeCrow—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3730609/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-emails/","name":"White House: Clinton's Private Email Are Not Our Problem"}}]}] ```