REUTERS/Mike Segar Hillary Clinton just spoke publicly for the first time about the controversy surrounding her personal email account usage while working at the State Department.
"When I got to work as Secretary of State I opted for convenience to use my personal email account which was allowed by the State Department because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two," the longtime politician said at the press conference.
"Looking back, it would've been better if I had simply used a second email account and carried a second phone but at the time this didn't seem like an issue…The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department."
Clinton further explained to reporters, "At the end, I chose not to keep my private personal emails. Emails about planning Chelsea [Clinton]'s wedding or making my mother's funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends, as well as yoga routines, family vacations and other things you typically find in inboxes. No one wants their personal emails made public and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy."
And shortly before opening up the floor for questions, Clinton firmly defended her actions, adding, "I took unprecedented step of making all work-related emails public."
The presser occurred just moments after Clinton spoke at the UN at the Women's Empowerment Principles Event to address female equality issues.
"There has never been a better time to be born a woman. But we are not there yet," she told a packed audience.
"Empowering women can lift up societies and propel economies…It is up to us that the world our children inherit is worthy of them."
This isn't exactly the first time that Clinton has spoken about her latest political scandal; in fact, she took to Twitter recently to make her stance on the issue very clear.
"I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible," she wrote on March 4.