 WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton was directly asked by congressional investigators in a December 2012 letter whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state, according to letters obtained by The New York Times. The question came in a Dec. 13, 2012, letter, obtained by CNN and first reported by the New York Times , from Rep. Darrell Issa, then-chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to an array of Cabinet secretaries. It was part of an investigation into the email policies and procedures imposed by the Obama administration on its officials.
– Just when you thought Hillary Clinton's email brouhaha had moved on to other things, the New York Times uncovers an old letter congressional investigators sent Clinton asking about her email use. In the letter dated Dec. 13, 2012, House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa explicitly asks whether the then-secretary of state "or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business" and requests that the accounts be identified. He also asks about "alias" accounts and text messages, CNN reports. Clinton never replied and left the State Department weeks later on Feb. 1, 2013. On March 27 of that year, the department described its policies for personal email use for Issa, as he had also requested. "Employees may use personal email on personal time for matters not directly related to official business, and any employee using personal email 'should make it clear that his or her personal email is not being used for official business,'" the State Department's assistant secretary for legislative affairs wrote. A rep refused to answer questions yesterday about why it avoided mentioning Clinton's email use. However, a Clinton aide says "her usage was widely known to the over 100 department and US government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent." Issa's initial letter was part of an investigation spawned when administration and EPA officials were found to be using private accounts for government business.