US House committee subpoenas Clinton emails

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her mobile phone before a conference at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London, in this March 29, 2011 file photo.[Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - A House of Representatives committee has issued subpoenas for the emails of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who used a private account exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state _ and also used a computer email server now traced back to her family's New York state home.

The subpoenas issued Wednesday indicate Republicans want questions about Hillary Rodham Clinton's use of a private email account to follow her into a widely anticipated second presidential campaign. Republicans, who control the investigative powers of Congress, say the revelations reaffirm their long-held portrayal of Bill and Hillary Clinton as secretive and playing by their own rules. Democrats dismiss the accusations as trivial, but they were fast becoming a distraction for Clinton.

"The American people deserve all of the facts," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, intends to investigate whether Clinton, by using a personal email account, may have violated federal requirements that written communications of officials are preserved.

Democrats question whether the emails will resonate with voters in an election 20 months away. But as the presidential nominating season begins, Clinton's use of a personal email account for State Department business has stoked questions about transparency that threaten to cloud her early steps as the Democratic Party's overwhelming favorite White House prospect.

The subpoenas from the Republican-led Select Committee on the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, demanded additional material from Clinton and others, spokesman Jamal D. Ware said. The panel also instructed technology companies it did not identify to preserve any relevant documents in their possession.

The questions follow recent reports about the Clinton family foundation's raising of money from foreign governments, while she was the country's top diplomat, to benefit the nonprofit's philanthropic mission.

The development at Congress came the same day AP reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton significant control over limiting access to her message archives.