House Benghazi Committee Issues Subpoena For Clinton Emails

By Eyder Peralta

Published March 4, 2015 at 5:18 PM CST

Hillary Clinton, seen here in 2011 during her tenure as secretary of state, used a personal email account instead of an official government account.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi has issued a subpoena for all emails related to Libya or Benghazi that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have sent from a private email account.

This is the first concrete fallout from a revelation by The New York Times that Clinton conducted official business through a personal account that was not and is still not controlled by the federal government.

A spokesman for the committee said it had also alerted "Internet firms" of their legal obligation to protect those documents.

Jamal D. Ware said the committee had uncovered two email addresses used by Clinton.

"Without access to the relevant electronic information and stored data on the server—which was reportedly registered to her home—there is no way the Committee, or anyone else, can fully explain why the Committee uncovered two email addresses," Ware said in a statement. "As Chairman Gowdy has noted, this is why former Secretary Clinton's exclusive use of personal emails to conduct official U.S. government business is so problematic and raises significant issues for transparency."

The AP followed The New York Times' report with a piece today that revealed Clinton's email address was traced to a server at her home in Chappaqua, New York.

In other words, Clinton's email were being sent out of a server she controlled. The AP reports:

"The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton — who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives.

"The practice also would complicate the State Department's legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be the position of accepting Clinton's assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control."

A State Department spokeswoman told NPR's Scott Horsley that Clinton did not break any laws by using her personal email account.

"Federal law allows government officials to use personal email so long as relevant documents are preserved for history," the spokeswoman said, according to Horsley.