During the 2016 presidential election, one of the talking points used against Hillary Clinton was her use of a private Email Server while serving as Secretary of State. Fast forward to president day, and the White House appears to have a similar issue to account for.
Pence's emails
Hillary Clinton faced a lot of criticism from Donald Trump, Republicans, and the right-wing media during her run for president, but the issue of her emails while running the State Department received the most attention. Republicans claimed that Clinton was hiding sensitive information on the servers, which could have exposed details about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi.
Multiple investigations, including by House Republicans, never turned up much information, and Clinton was cleared by the FBI last year. As reported by USA Today, and later the Hill on March 2, Vice President Mike Pence has some explaining to do when it comes to his own use of an email server.
#BREAKING Exclusive: As Indiana governor, VP Pence used personal email for state business — and was hacked https://t.co/pq9OAKj8jg
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 3, 2017
According to the report in the USA Today, Mike Pence used a private email server during his time as governor of Indiana. In addition, the report uncovers that Pence's server was actually hacked, and included information that related to offical state business.
The email server in question was the same personal account used by the vice president last year, which also dealt with being hacked.
Pence used personal email as governor and was hacked: report https://t.co/Zg7AOj5qax pic.twitter.com/usoQZGq5V7
— The Hill (@thehill) March 3, 2017
The email account was based through AOL, and included the "state's response to terror attacks and an update about the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges." Mike Pence has denied any wrongdoing, citing the state's law that allows an elected offical to use a private server as long as the information was saved on record.
In a statement from a spokesperson for the vice president's office, comparisons to Clinton's emails were described as "absurd," since nothing that was discussed had anything to do with the federal government.
Next up
With controversy now surrounding Mike Pence, President Donald Trump is now forced to deal with even more issues in his administration. The report regarding Pence's email server comes just 24 hours after it was revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in communication with Russia during the campaign.