Clinton opposed private emails accessible to ‘anybody,’ aide says

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 is one of several former State Department officials who are being deposed by the conservative group in a civil lawsuit over the agency’s failure to turn over files under the Freedom of Information Act.

Judicial Watch lawyers repeatedly pressed Abedin to explain Clinton’s concern expressed to her in a November 2010 message that her emails might become public, but the longtime aide insisted that Clinton’s interest in wanting to keep her personal correspondence from being exposed was similar to any private citizen’s.

[...] Clinton’s private server contained tens of thousands of work-related emails as well as private messages, and her decision to conduct both private and government business on her system meant that she kept control of both types of correspondence, effectively preventing her State Department correspondence from being archived by the agency and made available for public records requests.