President Obama was asked about Hillary Clinton’s secret emails during his trip to Selma, Ala., Saturday and said he did not know his former secretary of state was using a secret account until he read it in the news. The president also noted he does not follow Clinton’s practice of secrecy.
“Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. Government for official business while she was secretary of state?” asked CBS’s Bill Plante.
“The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports,” Obama said.
Plante asked if Obama was disappointed to learn of Clinton’s practices. “Let me just say that Hillary Clinton is and has been an outstanding public servant,” Obama answered. “She was a great secretary of state for me. The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency, which is why my emails — the Blackberry I carry around — all those records are available and archived, and I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”
Finally, when asked how Clinton’s secrecy squares with Obama’s pledge to run a transparent administration, the president said, “I think that the fact that she is putting them forward will allow us to make sure that people have the information they need.”
