The White House is rejecting a report in the New York Post that contends White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett orchestrated the discovery by the press of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email account.
The Post reported, without naming a single source, that Jarrett “leaked to the press details of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address during her time as secretary of state.”
Asked about the report at the daily White House press briefing, Press Secretary Josh Earnest dubbed it “utter baloney.”
Various news reports have suggested that Clinton’s controversial use of a personal email address surfaced as congressional panels investigated the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, during her State Department tenure.
Obama himself joked about the email controversy at Saturday night’s Gridiron dinner, noting he was elected back in 2008 as the “young, tech-savvy candidate of the future.
“Now I’m yesterday’s news and Hillary has got a server in her house,” he said at the Washington, D.C. white tie dinner. “I didn’t even know you could have one of those in your house. I am so far behind. Did you know that? I would have gotten one.”
Democrats have pointed out that Clinton is not the only potential 2016 presidential contender with a private email account. American Bridge has singled out former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in particular for what it called his “hypocrisy,” noting that even as he pushed Clinton to release her emails, he was the one who selected which of his emails would be archived.
Politifact Florida, however, points out that “state statute allows officials or an authorized custodian to determine which emails go into the public record based on whether they pertain to state business. The state archives only receive and preserve them.”
Bush’s email address -- jeb@jeb.org -- was also widely known during his tenure as governor.