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Defense secretary used personal email for official business: report

by Elliot Smilowitz - 12/16/15 9:24 PM ET

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter continued conducting his work on a personal email account after the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private email server erupted, The New York Times reported late Wednesday.

Carter used the personal account for at least two months after revelations that Clinton used her private server for official business when she was secretary of State.

{mosads}Doing so was in defiance of Defense Department rules, according to the Times. The newspaper cited unnamed White House and Defense officials in its report.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough in May told the White House Counsel’s Office to ask Defense why Carter was using the personal account, the report said.

“After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake,” a Carter spokesman told the Times.

“As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether.”

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