WASHINGTON—Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin said in a legal proceeding that Clinton did not want the private emails that she mixed in with State Department emails on her private computer server to be accessible to “anybody,” according to transcripts released Wednesday.
Abedin’s comments provided new insight into the highly unusual decision by the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate to operate a private email server in her basement to conduct government business when she served as secretary of state.
Abedin also said under oath that she was not aware whether Clinton personally deleted any emails during her tenure as secretary.
Abedin told lawyers for the conservative group Judicial Watch in a deposition that she could not recall whether she or Clinton discussed with any State Department officials Clinton’s use of her server exclusively for government business. Abedin, who was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department, now works with Clinton’s presidential campaign and often travels with the candidate. Abedin used an email account on Clinton’s server occasionally for government business, although Abedin also used a government address.
“I assumed it was OK to do,” she testified.
