Responding to controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account as the nation’s top diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry is asking the agency’s internal watchdog to launch a review of how it handles its records and responds to requests for information. Kerry sent a letter Wednesday asking Inspector General Steve Linick to conduct “a review of our efforts to date on improving records management, including the archiving of emails as well as responding to FOIA and Congressional inquiries,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said at a regular briefing for reporters Friday. Story Continued Below Asked if Kerry was asking for an investigation of how Clinton handled her email as secretary, Rathke said that wasn’t the aim of the letter, but he didn’t rule out that the inquiry will encompass her conduct. “It’s not specific to that,” Rathke said. Kerry sent a letter Wednesday asking Inspector General Steve Linick to conduct “a review of our efforts to date on improving records management, including the archiving of emails as well as responding to FOIA and Congressional inquiries,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said at a regular briefing for reporters Friday. Story Continued Below Asked if Kerry was asking for an investigation of how Clinton handled her email as secretary, Rathke said that wasn’t the aim of the letter, but he didn’t rule out that the inquiry will encompass her conduct. “It’s not specific to that,” Rathke said. “We are also facing challenges regarding our integration of recordkeeping technologies and the use of non-government systems by some Department personnel to conduct official business,” he wrote. Rathke said the call for the review was “an important step” in making sure that records of U.S. diplomacy are available to those seeking to study them. “The secretary is committed to preserving a complete record of American foreign policy. Doing so is required, but it is also good government,” the spokesman said. Kerry said in the letter that he is eager to “adapt our systems and policies to keep pace with changes in technology and the way our personnel work.” “We are focused on improving the way we search for and produce documents in response to requests whether through the Freedom of Information Act, inquiries from Congress, or access to historians and the public,” Rathke said. Linick said Friday that his office is considering how to craft such a review. ”We are now conducting preliminary work to determine the proper scope and methodology for a review of the Department’s ability to preserve information and respond to information requests, among other things,” the inspector general said. Clinton and the State Department have been peppered with questions about email-related issues since a New York Times report earlier this month revealed that she used a private email account and server while she was secretary from 2009 to 2013. In response to a request last October from the agency, in December Clinton turned over to the State Department 55,000 pages of emails from that account. She said it was her practice to send work-related emails to other State officials’ official accounts, so that they would be preserved as part of federal records systems. However, State Department officials disclosed in recent weeks that the email of top officials was not routinely or automatically archived during her tenure. There have been numerous requests for Linick’s office to get involved in the Clinton email issue, including a letter from the Republican National Committee and another in which House Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) suggested that Clinton’s private email server could be turned over to the inspector general to verify that she produced all work-related messages to the department. It’s unclear whether Kerry’s letter triggered the IG’s work on the issue, or whether it was already underway. Linick did not address that in his statement, but said he considered “a top priority” record preservation issues and questions of responsiveness to document requests. Ver Mas en: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/state-department-records-hillary-clinton-emails-john-kerry-request-116467.html?hp=l2_4
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