Pentagon says Defense secretary’s use of personal email was ‘a mistake’

“It would be prudent for this assessment to extend to Secretary Carter’s time as Deputy Secretary of Defense as well”.

Carter was set to meet personnel at a USA base in eastern Afghanistan, near the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, where about 600 US troops are stationed.

That Carter apparently chose to use a personal account after the Clinton revelation has already drawn a sharp rebuke from Sen. In his defense, Carter is not the first to make such a mistake.

This violates Defense Department rules, in place since 2012, about using personal email for government business.

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The New York Times reported Wednesday that Carter relied on a personal e-mail account to conduct some of his government business during his first months at the Pentagon.

“This is a mistake I made with respect to e-mail; entirely my mistake; entirely on me”, Carter told reporters travelling with him in Erbil, Iraq after it emerged that he used his personal email for government business in the early part of his tenure, triggering concerns hackers could access sensitive information.

“Someone in my position should have known better”, he said. “I did not do the right thing”, he said. The official said the president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, asked the White House legal team to raise the issue quickly with Pentagon senior staff and ensure that Carter’s email was being managed appropriately.

It is uncertain when Carter stopped using his personal email account and it remains unclear how many emails Carter sent and received from that account.

“With all the public attention surrounding the improper use of personal e-mail by other administration officials, it is hard to believe that Secretary Carter would exercise the same error in judgment”, McCain, a Republican, said in a statement, adding that his committee had requested copies of Carter’s e-mails to conduct the review.

“In September, The Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all emails from the personal account that Mr. Carter sent or received with his chief of staff at the time, Eric Fanning, during the month of April”, it wrote noting that in November, the Defense Department provided it with 72 work-related emails that Carter sent or received from his personal email account.

The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former secretary of state, Clinton was widely criticized for mixing work and private business while emailing. “He is confident that his work-related email has been and will continue to be preserved within the federal records system”. Clinton has turned over some 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department. He takes his responsibilities with regard to classified material very seriously.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had faced hearings at Senate Committee in connection with her usage of personal email to exchange classified contents.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that the administration has given clear guidance on email use and using a personal account is the “wrong choice”.