You may have thought Hillary Clinton used a personal email address for government business and maintained her own computer server to send and receive emails because she didn't want the public to peek at her correspondence.
But Clinton, who is expected to run in the 2016 presidential election, wants to make one thing clear: She wants the public to see her email.
On the heels of controversy, the former secretary of state tweeted Wednesday night that she has asked the State Department to release her emails.
I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) Mar 04 2015
Earlier Wednesday, a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, issued subpoenas for Clinton's emails. Clinton has been the target of the Republican-led Select Committee on Benghazi before as she was secretary of state at the time of the deadly onslaught.
Clinton can still spin the email scandal and claim that she used a personal email address while she held a Cabinet-level position not to keep her messages away from the public eye, but rather as an extra layer of security. But some experts don't believe she could have supported a strong-enough security system on her own.
Emails sent from an official government account would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows people to receive copies of federal records, including officials' emails. But Clinton didn't even have a government email address. Correspondence sent from private accounts is much harder to get. Reporters often file FOIA requests to retrieve government documents.
Operating her own server would also allow Clinton to stymie private and government subpoenas because her lawyers could object the requests in court, according to The Associated Press. Using her personal email address to conduct business as the secretary of state also brings up the question of whether she saved copies of those messages as required by the Federal Records Act, the AP reports.