Inspector general cites Caroline Kennedy for using private email
By Sarah Westwood • 8/25/15 3:43 PM
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy was singled out by the State Department's watchdog for using a personal email account to conduct official business.
Kennedy, who has served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan since 2013, "used personal email accounts to send and receive messages containing official business," according to a State Department inspector general report made public Tuesday.
Other senior embassy staff also used personal email accounts to handle government communications, occasionally transmitting information marked "sensitive but unclassified" on commercial accounts, the report found.
State Department officials have faced heavy criticism for allowing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to conduct all of her government business using a private email account and server.
The agency has taken steps to ensure a similar situation does not occur again. Secretary John Kerry asked the inspector general to review State's policy on records management after news of Clinton's server emerged in March.
The inspector general also found problems with Kennedy's chief of staff, Debra DeShong Reed, in its report on the U.S. embassy in Japan.
Many embassy employees admitted they had little idea what DeShong Reed's actual duties were. Those the watchdog could discern — such as note-taking in high-level meetings with Japanese diplomats — were not performed well, with official reports from those meetings containing "gaps."
Embassy officials also mismanaged travel costs and had hired more staff than were actually needed, the inspector general reported.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/inspector-general-cites-caroline-kennedy-for-using-private-email/article/2570807
