the white house, state department and hillary clinton's personal office knew in august 2014 that the former secretary of state was using a private email account to conduct official government business clinton's staff, who knew that house republicans had received information from the private email address, made the decision to keep the information from the public her staff waited until after the new york times published an article on tuesday about the subject to discuss the email address scroll down for video  white house and state department staff, as well as hillary clinton's personal office knew about her personal email address in august, but her office decided to keep the information from the public  key personnel from the obama administration and on clinton's staff were aware of the address for six months, sources said, according to politico and, it is possible that clinton distributed sensitive information through her personal email, the state department has admitted, and only a review of her messages will determine if she broke the rules the state department first became aware of the email address when responding to a request form the house select committee during the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the us consulate based in the libyan city of benghazi when state and white house officials noticed clinton's private email address on documents, they notified her personal staff and said they should take lead, since she was no longer a government employee clinton spokesman nick merrill said staff believes clinton's email practices were not a cause for concern, nor did they break rules 'there was nothing to get ahead of,' merrill said 'this was perfectly permissible and the practice of past secretaries, and not only did she turn over all pertinent emails, she has taken the extraordinary step of now asking them to be released to the public when that’s done, which we hope is soon, it will become clear that it’s all in there and then some' a state department official who spoke to the washington post, however, acknowledged that some of the correspondence clinton sent through her private email may constitute a breach of security guidelines the official said that clinton didn't directly defy state's policies by using her personal email for government communications, but a manual obtained by news outlets shows that since 2005 state has directed its employees to use its email system because it has the 'proper level of security control' the former secretary of state's team has responded to a storm of criticism surrounding clinton's email practices by hunkering down and waiting for it to pass but top communications gurus are recommending the campaign immediately act to deflate 'email gate' top communications gurus are recommending clinton' steam immediately act to deflate email gate democrats in early states worry the scandal is an early warning sign that clinton's presumed presidential campaign is on the path to destruction and could 'implode' from the outset, the state department has cautiously avoided declaring clinton innocent of any wrongdoing while encouraging reporters to give her the benefit of the doubt 'she and her team has said that it was not used for anything but unclassified work,' marie harf, deputy spokeswoman for state told reporters on wednesday, adding moments later, 'i don’t think there was any indication she was doing anything but [that] here, so i don’t think it’s really a pertinent question' further pressed to 'definitively' claim clinton wasn't sending classified information through her personal email – which is against the law – harf argued that 'you can’t claim that about anyone’s unclassified email' she also noted in the exchange that the department doesn't monitor its other employees' private communications to make sure that classified information isn't being shared 'i’m not sure why this would be anything different,' harf contended 'i don’t know why this would be held to a different standard' when clinton did need to discuss classified information she communicated through her her staff, the state department spokeswoman claimed later asked if clinton's exclusive use of personal email was 'problematic,' harf stated that that 'there was no prohibition on this practice' 'so i’m not going to make a judgment about appropriateness or not,' she said 'i’m telling you what the regulations say and don’t say she operated under them, and that’s as much as i can say' guidelines published by politico and other publications on thursday evening suggest otherwise, however 'it is the department’s general policy that normal day to day operations be conducted on an authorized [automated information system], which has the proper level of security control to provide nonrepudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information,' the state department's foreign affairs manual says state department deputy spokeswoman marie harf insists that mrs clinton didn't send any classified material through her private 'clintonemailscom' account while she led the agency  an official who spoke to politico said that it is true that 'sensitive but unclassified information should be handled on a system with certain security requirements' with the caveat 'except in certain circumstances' the state department insider said it's not true that 'by using personal email she is automatically out of step' with the guidelines outlined in the manual likewise, the post's source at state said, 'we are not going to prejudge the outcome of the review of secretary clinton’s 55,000 pages of e mails' national democrats aligned with clinton are blowing off the email squabble as background noise that won't affect voters' perceptions of their party's most formidable presidential candidate 'voters do not give a s*** about what email hillary used they don't even give a fart,' paul begala, confidante of and adviser to bill clinton,' said thursday on cnn media matters founder david brock said in an op ed on cnn that the media 'hype' around clinton's emails is the 'perfect example of 'gotcha' journalism, where reporters will take any bait the republicans give them without proper vetting' brock, whose group american bridge runs a pro clinton fact checking service called correct the record, also argued that the clintons 'are held to a double standard when it comes to media scrutiny' 'their perfectly usual, above board behavior is spun as secretive and unaccountable   while republicans are left relatively unscathed,' he charged regardless, top level communicators on the left and the right say that clinton currently risks mishandling the crisis dueling tweets, part i: likely republican presidential candidate jeb bush goaded clinton to be more transparent  dueling tweets, part ii: clinton responded by saying 'i want the public to see my email' and asking her old agency to hurry up the process  former barack obama senior adviser david axelrod has said that the longer clinton and her team wait to respond to the flurry of questions about her use of not only a non official email for her work at the state department but also a personal domain name and a private server, the likelier the situation is to get out of hand 'it’s a ball of wool that won’t go away until the questions are answered,' he told the new york times on thursday ari fleisher, a former spokesman for george w bush, told bloomberg, clinton's team is 'making a big mistake' by not letting her address the issue publicly 'this is immediately understood and problematic in the eyes of the average voter everyone can relate to it and understand it… it cuts through the clutter in a way that hurts her,' he said 'this is one of those issues that’s not going away anytime soon' clinton fired off a tweet on wednesday night saying she wanted the public to read her emails and had given the state department permission to publish them once they it finishes its review and a spokesman for her confirmed to the press at the beginning of the week that all of her emails that pertain to the state department have been remanded to the federal government questions continue to linger, however, and neither clinton nor her team have given a reasonable explanation for the former obama administration official's actions larry hogden, chairman of iowa’s cedar county democrats, told politico the email controversy 'adds more reason' for other politicians in the party to explore presidential campaigns 'because, who knows? she could implode totally,' he said
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staff discovered private emails in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the us consulate based in the libyan city of benghazi  they decided that since she was no longer part of government, her personal office should handle the information  clinton's staff decided to keep quiet about the private email address  spokesman nick merrill said the staff believes clinton's email practices were not a cause for concern, nor did they break rules 