Hillary Laughs at ABC News’ Karl’s Question

Tuesday after speaking at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a press conference to address the brewing controversy over her exclusive use of private email on a server she owns when serving as secretary of state for President Barack Obama.

While ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl was asking multiple question Clinton broke out into laughter when Karl asked, “The president of the United States said that he was unaware that you had this unusual email arrangement. The White House Council’s Office said you never approved this through them. Why did you not do that? Why have you apparently caught the White House by surprise?”

Clinton then when on to ignore the question she laughed at saying, “Well, let me try to unpack your multiple questions. first, the laws and regulations in effect when I was secretary of state allowed me to use my email for work. That is undisputed. Secondly, under the Federal Records Act, records are defined as recorded information regardless of its form or characteristics. and in meeting the record keeping obligations. It was my practice to e-mail government officials on their State or other dot gov accounts so that the emails were immediately captured and preserved. Now, there are different rules governing the White House than there are governing the rest of the executive branch. and in order to address the requirements I was under, I did exactly what I have said. I emailed two people and I not only knew, I expected that then to be captured in the State Department or any other government agency that I was e-mailing to at a dot gov account. What happened in, starting late summer, early fall, is that the State Department sent a letter to former secretaries of state, not just to me, asking for some assistance in providing any work-related emails that might be on the personal e-mail. And what I did was to direct, you know, my counsel to conduct a thorough investigation and to err on the side of providing anything that could be connected to work. They did that. and that was my obligation. I fully fulfilled it and then I took unprecedented step of saying go ahead and release them and let people see them.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN