http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/235288-hagel-used-personal-email-on-the-job-report-saysMarch 10, 2015, 07:17 pm
Hagel used personal email on the job, report says
By David McCabe
A White House official emailed Chuck Hagel using his personal address for official business at least once when he was secretary of Defense, NBC 4 Washington reported Tuesday.
In the fall of 2013, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough wrote to cabinet secretaries about the government shutdown. He did not include Hagel's official address, but did include the address cthsd24@gmail.com.
Hagel's initials are "CTH" — his middle name is Timothy — and he was the 24th secretary of Defense.
A department spokesman told the television station Hagel had maintained two phones for personal and work business while at the Pentagon.
“He understood the need to keep the two separate and to keep government business on his official e-mail," the spokesman told NBC 4. "On some limited occasions, an email may have been sent to or from the wrong account.”
The White House declined to comment to the television station.
The line between the personal and government email addresses of cabinet secretaries has been under scrutiny after the revelation that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had used her personal account for all of her official business.
She said Tuesday that she had made that choice out of convenience. Her team has turned 30,490 emails over to the State Department and erased the remaining 31,830 emails.
When cabinet secretaries use their personal emails accounts instead of the ones issued to them by their agencies, their messages may not be automatically archived under public records laws.
