Another Top Obama Admin. Official Used Private Email to Conduct Gov’t Business — Months After Clinton Scandal Broke

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) -- The Pentagon confirmed late Wednesday that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter occasionally used his personal email account to conduct government business for a period after the scandal over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server erupted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter holds a news conference at the Pentagon, October 23, 2015. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

Carter's press secretary, Peter Cook, released a statement saying Carter believes his use of personal email for work-related business was a mistake. Cook declined to say whether it was a violation of Pentagon email policies. Cook said Carter stopped the practice, but Cook did not say when.

The Pentagon statement was in response to a report published late Wednesday by The New York Times. The newspaper reported it had obtained 72 work-related emails that Carter sent or received from his personal email account.

"After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake," Cook wrote. "As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether."

The Times said the emails it received under the Freedom of Information Act were exchanges between Carter and Eric Fanning, who was his chief of staff at the time and is now the acting secretary of the Army.

The emails were on a variety of work-related topics, the Times said, including speeches, meetings and news media appearances. In one such email, Carter discussed how he had mistakenly placed a note card in a "burn bag," the Times reported. Such bags are typically used to destroy classified documents.

Cook said Carter "does not use his personal email or official email for classified material. The Secretary has a secure communications team that handles his classified information and provides it to him as necessary."

Carter "takes his responsibilities with regard to classified material very seriously," Cook said. Carter took office in February.

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