Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Update: Former Secretary Of State Expected To Answer Questions For First Time On Tuesday

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected Tuesday to address the email controversy dogging her as she mulls a likely run for president in 2016, according to multiple news reports. Clinton reportedly will take questions from the media following revelations that she exclusively used private email to conduct State Department business during her tenure. The session with reporters will mark the first time Clinton will answer questions about her email practices, which Republicans criticized for possibly violating federal regulations and not being transparent.

Clinton is scheduled to speak at 1:40 p.m. EDT at the United Nations, where she is giving the keynote address for an event titled “Unlimited Potential: Business Partners for Gender Equality,” according to the event’s program. The former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady -- who many believe will seek the 2016 Democratic nomination for president -- is expected to take questions following the event, which is being livestreamed here.

So far, Clinton has addressed the email controversy only through a spokesman and on Twitter, where she wrote last week that she wants the public to see her State Department-related emails. She has been facing calls to explain why she used private email.

Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, said that Clinton has nothing to hide and that her predecessors at the State Department also used private email. “Like secretaries of state before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained,” he said last week. “When the department asked former secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes.”

Regulations were put in place in 2009, while Clinton was secretary of state, by the National Archives and Records Administration. Those regulations said that government agencies and officials who used personal email had to make sure their private messages were archived “in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.” Clinton didn’t comply with these rules until December.

It was later learned that Clinton owned the private server that hosted her clintonemail.com account, meaning her messages weren’t being archived. Critics have called on Clinton to turn over the server to the State Department along with her emails. They also want the messages to be made public.