WASHINGTON -- The State Department has ordered an internal audit of its record keeping, officials said Friday, outlining a top-to-bottom look at the agency's practices after revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private email account and server during her tenure.
The department released a letter Secretary of State John Kerry sent to the department's inspector general earlier this week, asking for the review and calling it critical to "preserve a full and complete record of American foreign policy" and for the U.S. public to have access to that information.
Among the questions he outlined were how best to retain records in light of changing technology, the agency's global presence and increasing demands from Congress.
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said Friday that the review would include the archiving of emails as well as Freedom of Information Act and congressional inquiries.
He said it was not specific to Clinton, a likely presidential candidate who has been dogged by questions since it became clear she didn't use a government email account while in office and only provided the State Department with copies of work-related emails late last year.
The full trove of Clinton emails will be published on a website after they are reviewed, the department has said. Emails pertaining to a congressional panel's examination of a deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, will be released in advance of the others, it said.
In the letter, Kerry said his department has undertaken significant efforts to promote preservation and transparency, including through better technology and training of staff.
Kerry also didn't mention Clinton specifically but noted that officials were "facing challenges regarding our integration of recordkeeping technologies and the use of nongovernment systems by some department personnel to conduct official business."
Meanwhile, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, said Friday that Clinton wiped her email server "clean," permanently deleting all emails from it after submitting thousands to the State Department.
Gowdy, who has questioned whether Clinton turned over all of her work-related emails, said the former secretary of state has failed to produce a single new document in recent weeks and has refused to relinquish her server to a third party for an independent review, as Gowdy has requested.
Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, said Gowdy was looking in the wrong place.
In a six-page letter released late Friday, Kendall said Clinton's personal attorneys reviewed every email sent and received from her private email address -- 62,320 emails in total -- and identified all work-related emails. Those totaled 30,490 emails, or approximately 55,000 pages.
The material was provided to the State Department on Dec. 5, 2014, and it is the agency's discretion to release those emails after a review, he said.
Kendall also said it would be pointless for Clinton to turn over her server, since "no emails ... reside on the server or on any backup systems associated with the server."
Clinton faced a Friday deadline to respond to a subpoena for emails and documents related to Libya, including the 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Gowdy said he will work with House leaders to consider options. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has not ruled out a vote in the full House to force Clinton to turn over the server if she declines to make it available by an April 3 deadline set by Gowdy.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Benghazi panel, said Kendall's letter confirmed "what we all knew: that Secretary Clinton already produced her official records to the State Department, that she did not keep her personal emails and that the Select Committee has already obtained her emails relating to the attacks in Benghazi."
Cummings said it is time for Gowdy and other Republicans to stop what he called a "political charade."
A Section on 03/28/2015