Democratic Ally Urges Hillary Clinton To Explain Her Email Actions
WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should fully explain her actions involving the use of a private, nongovernment email account when she was the country's top diplomat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday, becoming the first major Democrat to urge Clinton to share more details of the private account.
Feinstein said the former first lady and New York senator "needs to step up and come out and say exactly what the situation was," adding that from "this point on, the silence is going to hurt her."
Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, also avoided the controversy Sunday morning.
Asked whether his wife was treated fairly, Bill Clinton replied, "I'm not the one to judge that. I have an opinion, but I have a bias."
"I shouldn't be making news on this," he said, in remarks reported on CNN.com.
Hillary Clinton has been criticized for her use of the private email account and whether she complied with federal rules requiring officials to retain their communications. Clinton says that she's turned over all relevant emails -- totaling 55,000 pages -- to the State Department for review.
Clinton is considered the front-runner for the party's 2016 presidential nomination, but hasn't entered the race yet. So far, a tweet has been her only comment on the controversy. She did not address the issue Saturday night during an event in Coral Gables, Florida, for the Clinton Global Initiative University.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., stuck up for Clinton on Sunday, saying she did not break the law and she has been forthcoming with providing emails.
"Hillary Clinton followed the law," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "And I know that people keep going 'Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.' Well, there have been several investigations by the committees and others. They've come up with zeroes, and they just keep at it. I think that at the end of the day, this will be regarded as a slight hiccup."
Watch the full Schumer interview:
Meanwhile, one of Clinton's predecessors, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he has retained none of the emails sent from his personal email account during his tenure at the department in the first George W. Bush administration.
"I don't have any to turn over," he said Sunday. "I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off."
Powell added: "A lot of the emails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and the State.gov domain. But I don't know if the servers (for) the State Department captured those or not.''
Powell said all the emails from his account were unclassified and most were "pretty benign, so I'm not terribly concerned even if they were able to recover them."
Feinstein appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and Powell made his comments on ABC's "This Week."
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