Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, is the latest to get embroiled in an email scandal. Kennedy and other senior officials at the U.S. embassy in Japan used private emails for official business, an internal investigator said in a report Tuesday.
The issue came on the heels of the ongoing investigations involving Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Clinton has faced questions about her exclusive use of a personal email account when she was secretary of state. That account was run through a private server that Clinton kept at her New York home.
"Senior embassy staff, including the ambassador, used personal email accounts to send and receive messages containing official business. In addition, (investigators) identified instances where emails labeled sensitive but unclassified were sent from, or received by, personal email accounts," said Inspector General Steve A. Linick, according to CNN.
The report on the embassy in Japan said the inspector general's office "has previously reported on the risks associated with using commercial email for official government business." Adding that "such risks include data loss, hacking, phishing and spoofing of email accounts, as well as inadequate protections for personally identifiable information."
The report also noted that the State Department's policy, "is that employees generally should not use private email accounts (for example, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and so forth) for official business." It added that "employees are also expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit sensitive but unclassified information when available and practical," reports The New York Times.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the practice of sending "Sensitive but Unclassified" information on private email is strongly discouraged, but not forbidden outright.
"We've seen no indication that Ambassador Kennedy violated any department policy with respect to her email practices and she ... continues to use a government e-mail account for her official business," Kirby said, according to ABC News.
Kirby also noted that the report was focused on an overall review of the U.S. embassy in Japan, not solely the use of Ambassador Kennedy's email.
