Now It's Defense Chief Ash Carter's Turn to Explain Use of Personal Email

Citing the ongoing probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman on Monday asked Defense Secretary Ash Carter for a full inventory of the emails from his private account disclosed in the press last November.

“The use of private email in this context exposes the information to possible hacks and intrusions by foreign intelligence agencies,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote to Carter on Feb. 1.  “As the secretary of Defense, you are inevitably a prime target for foreign hackers. As such, the threat is real and compliance with the law is essential.”

Though Carter acknowledged and apologized for his lapse, Grassley is seeking an accounting of how the Pentagon handled the online security procedures when he assumed the department’s top job, how it is handling the aftermath and whether Carter’s claim that no classified information was involved holds up.

“Personal email use is against various government laws and rules, including those maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Defense Department, and might impede compliance with the Freedom of Information Act,” Grassley’s letter noted, citing the Archives’ 2013 bulletin providing guidance for officials on retaining federal records. Conducting business on personal email accounts is permitted only in case of emergency.

The Judiciary Committee is “looking into potential compromises of classified information due to Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement,” Grassley wrote. “It is troubling to learn of your use of personal email for official matters, especially since you continued using that arrangement even after the risks of private use were made clear when news of Secretary Clinton’s use broke in March 2015.”

The senator cited federal law stating that a government employee “may not create or send a record using a non-official electronic messaging account” unless that employee copies an official government account or forwards a complete copy of the email to a government account no later than 20 days after transmission. “Defense Department Instruction 8550-01 prohibits the use of personal accounts for official business,” Grassley said.

He asked Carter to provide, by Feb. 16, answers to such questions as:

• Have you provided all emails you sent from a personal device for official government business while Secretary of Defense to the department for federal records preservation purposes?
• Why did you use a personal electronic device with a personal email address rather than your assigned government email address?
• Has a classification review been conducted on the emails to determine whether you ever sent or received classified information on a personal device using a personal email address?
• When did you begin using a government email address for official business and when did you cease?
• What training and employment paperwork did you receive prior to beginning work as Defense secretary that related to the use of electronic communication and prohibitions on the use of personal email to conduct official government business?
• While using your private email, what actions, if any, did you take to ensure compliance with federal recordkeeping requirements?
• What steps have you taken to see this practice is not repeated or followed by anyone else in your department?
• Has DoD or any other agency conducted any audit or investigation to determine whether your personal email accounts were compromised during the period you were using them to conduct government business, or whether your personal use of an iPhone compromised your personal security by potentially revealing your location?