The State Department announced Tuesday that it planned to release all of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email after its months-long review ends.
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki refuted reports saying that it would cost “millions” of taxpayer dollars to review Clinton’s 55,000 emails. She described the reports as “inaccurate” and exaggerated, though she didn’t offer an alternative estimate.
Psaki added that the cost of the review would’ve been the same regardless of whether Clinton had used a state.govemail account and no matter where the emails had been stored. She explained that it’s a mammoth undertaking, still carried out by hand in part because some record seekers request the original documents so as to see any handwritten notes or other markings.
“It’s traditionally been a paper process,” Psaki said. “Whether or not it should be, that’s a larger question.”
Psaki didn’t have a timeline on when the review would be completed. She said the 55,000 emails would be released “in one batch” at the end of the process. Documents would be withheld or redacted based on Freedom of Information Act criteria such as national security, personal privacy and trade secrets. Once cleared, the documents will appear on a public website, Psaki said.
Psaki also said the State Department would be releasing the letter it sent to other former secretaries requesting information on their own email practices and electronic record-keeping. Psaki summed up the responses so far: Condoleezza Rice said she didn’t use personal email for official business, Madeleine Albright didn’t use email at all, and Colin Powell used a personal email account in his business as secretary, but didn’t take hard copies and has no records from an account that’s long been closed.