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Hillary Clintons private e-mail address that she used while secretary of state reinforces everything people dont like about her, argues The Posts Chris Cillizza, and is very dangerous to her presidential ambitions. (The Washington Post)

Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private e-mail account for her official government business when she was secretary of state and did not routinely preserve and turn over those e-mails for government records collection, the State Department said Monday.

Clinton has turned over thousands of e-mails to the department from her private account, a step that was first reported by the New York Times late Monday. The private account came to light when the department sought records from Clinton and other former secretaries who have held the post during the e-mail age.

Some 300 of Clintons recovered e-mails were then turned over to a congressional committee investigating the 2012 deaths of four Americans at U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation, Psaki said in a statement. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with e-mails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those e-mails, we produced about 300 e-mails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement Tuesday: Like secretariesof state before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has come under fire for using a personal e-mail account for all of her work messages. (Reuters)

Clinton immediately said yes when the State Department asked former secretaries last year for help preserving e-mail records, he said.

Both the letter and spirit of the rules permitted State Department officials to use non-government email, as long as appropriate records were preserved, Merrill said.

It was not clear why Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, created the private account. But the practice appears to bolster long-standing criticism that Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have not been transparent.

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Hillary Clinton used private e-mail for government ...