After a State Department official’s recent admission that Hillary Clinton’s use of private email was “not acceptable,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest dodged a question from ABC’s Jon Karl about whether or not the Obama administration agreed with her assessment. (VIDEO: Josh Earnest Dodges 10 Consecutive Questions About Clinton Foundation)
KARL: I’m sure you were watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today.
EARNEST: I was paying rapt attention.
KARL: We heard from the senor official responsible for Freedom of Information Act requests and the like say that Hillary Clinton’s use — that the use of private email for public purposes as Hillary Clinton did is ‘clearly beyond the bounds of what is permissible.’ Do you agree with that?
EARNEST: I didn’t see who the official was. I was joking when I said I was paying rapt attention. [Laughter] Maybe I was missing something good.
KARL: It was Joyce Barr, just to be clear, the Assistant Secretary from the Bureau of Administration. But the position was simply that the use of private email for official business is– the message is loud and clear that that is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to use private email for official business.
EARNEST: Well we’ve talked about the kind of guidance that we give to administration officials and particularly to White House officials in terms of the use of email. The guidance that we receive is to use public email or our government email when carrying out official activities. But again–
KARL: So you would agree though that the use private email for official business is clearly not acceptable?
EARNEST: Well, this is a flashback to a couple months ago. But again, the guidance that we continue to give administration officials is that they should use their government email when they are conducting the official business of the United States government.