Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in an interview Tuesday that she was “sorry” for using a private email account while secretary of State.
“It was above board. But in retrospective, certainly, as I look back at it now — even though it was allowed — I should have used two accounts, one for personal, one for work-related emails,” Clinton told ABC News’s “David Muir” for the interview aired Tuesday evening.
“That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility. And I’m trying to be as transparent as I possibly can to not only release 55,000 pages of my emails, turn over my server, but I am looking forward, finally, to testifying before Congress,” Clinton said.
“Did you make a mistake?” Muir asked again to clarify her use of the word.
“I did, I did. As I said, it was allowed, and there was no hiding it. It was totally above-board. Everybody in the government I communicated with — and that was a lot of people — knew I was using a personal email,” she said. “But I’m sorry that it has raised all of these questions. I do take responsibility for … what is clearly not the best decision.”
ABC News earlier Tuesday released an 8-second video clip of Clinton saying she made a “mistake” and was “sorry,” but it was unclear the question posed to her or the context of her remarks.
Hours later, during the taping for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” Clinton seemingly reverted back to saying she was “sorry for all the confusion” surrounding her email, according to a pair of reporters who attended the taping. That was the response she had given NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview on Friday.
– This story was updated at 7:12 p.m.