Clinton sorry for 'causing confusion'

WASHINGTON • Mrs Hillary Clinton has said she is sorry her use of a personal e-mail account while she was secretary of state caused confusion, in her most contrite comments yet about an issue that has plagued her bid to be US president.

While saying she wished she had "made a different choice", she also maintained she had done nothing wrong, and did not apologise explicitly for using a private e-mail account for her work as top diplomat.

"At the end of the day, I am sorry that this has been confusing to people and has raised a lot of questions but there are answers to all these questions," she told MSNBC in an interview last Friday.

Mrs Clinton, front runner to be the Democratic Party nominee in the November election next year, has faced steady criticism from political opponents since it emerged in March that she had used her own e-mail account on an unsecured private server in her New York home for official business. Republicans say she flouted rules on record- keeping and transparency.

Doubts over Mrs Clinton's trustworthiness have damaged her numbers in opinion polls, allowing liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to narrow the gap with her before the first contests early next year to pick the Democrats' nominee.

Mrs Clinton, who was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, said: "It was allowed and it was fully above board. The people in the government knew that I was using a personal account."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now probing the security of the private server and any classified information on it.

The Republican National Committee said: "What's clear is Hillary Clinton regrets she got caught and is paying a political price, not the fact her secret e-mail server put our national security at risk."

REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on September 06, 2015, with the headline Clinton sorry for 'causing confusion'. Subscribe