Clinton says she doesn’t need to apologize

Associated Press

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she does not need to apologize for using a private email account and server while at the State Department because “what I did was allowed.”

In an interview with The Associated Press during a Labor Day campaign swing through Iowa, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination also said the lingering questions about her email practices while serving as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state have not damaged her campaign.

“Not at all. It’s a distraction, certainly,” Clinton said. “But it hasn’t in any way affected the plan for our campaign, the efforts we’re making to organize here in Iowa and elsewhere in the country. And I still feel very confident about the organization and the message that my campaign is putting out.”

Yet even in calling the inquiry into how she used email as the nation’s top diplomat a distraction, Clinton played down how it has affected her personally as a candidate.

“As the person who has been at the center of it, not very much,” Clinton said. “I have worked really hard this summer, sticking to my game plan about how I wanted to sort of reintroduce myself to the American people.”

As she has often said in recent weeks, Clinton told AP it would have been a “better choice” for her to use separate email accounts for her personal and public business. “I’ve also tried to not only take responsibility, because it was my decision, but to be as transparent as possible,” Clinton said.

Part of that effort, Clinton said, is answering any questions about her email “in as many different settings as I can.” She noted she has sought for nearly a year to testify before Congress about the issue, and that she is now slated to do so in October.