Hillary Clinton tells State Department to release emails from her personal account

Democratic presidential candidate has caused controversy by using personal email for government business

(Getty Images)

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has instructed the State Department to release all of her emails during her time as the top US diplomat, aiming to cut off criticism that has been growing in recent days.

It came to light earlier this week that Mrs Clinton had used a personal email account to conduct government business while serving as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013. She also used a private server and domain to send and receive the emails, stirring up further questions of the leading Democratic presidential candidate.

Mrs Clinton has not announced her intentions in the 2016 presidential election, but she is expected to run and is easily the Democratic favorite.

Use of a personal email address for government business is not illegal, but has been criticised as imprudent and lacking transparency. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who also used a personal email account but released his records, had been urging Mrs Clinton to make public her email history.

After her tenure as secretary of state, the State Department asked Mrs Clinton for her emails and last year she handed over about 55,000 pages of emails. Once the State Department reviews the records, they are expected to be released to the public.

“We will undertake this review as quickly as possible,” State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “Given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete.”

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