Hillary Rodham Clinton participates in a women's equality event.(Photo: Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to address her use of a private e-mail account Tuesday afternoon, ending her silence about a growing controversy as she prepares for a likely presidential campaign.
The former secretary of State will hold a brief news conference after appearing at a United Nations event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Beijing conference on women, her office said.
Clinton has only made a brief comment about the controversy via Twitter on March 4, saying she wants the public to see her e-mails from her tenure as the nation's top diplomat and that the State Department is reviewing the records for release. Clinton reportedly used a private e-mail server that was installed in her home and her own Internet domain — clintonemail.com — to conduct government business.
The State Department has said repeatedly that Clinton's use of a private e-mail account was not prohibited as long as she kept records of her communications. She provided State with 55,000 pages of e-mails at the department's request.
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Republicans have demanded an investigation. The House Select Committee on Benghazi — which is investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Libya — already has 300 pages of e-mails and has subpoenaed Clinton and the State Department individually for the rest.
While Democrats have said the Clinton controversy is overblown, some have called on her to speak out. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said the silence would hurt Clinton.
"She is the leading candidate, whether it be Republican or Democrat ... to be the next president," Feinstein said on NBC's
Meet the Press. "And I think she needs to step up and come out and state exactly what the situation is."
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With each passing day, however, tidbits about the e-mails have kept the controversy alive.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged Monday that President Obama did exchange e-mails with Clinton while she was the nation's top diplomat and knew she was using a private e-mail account. Obama had said during a CBS News interview that he learned of Clinton's non-governmental e-mail system "the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports."
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