QUESTION: The New York Times had a report out today showing that Congress – or Chairman Issa sent a letter to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State asking about her use of personal email, and the State Department got back after she had left in March of 2013. Do you have any response to that or --

MR RATHKE: Response to what particular aspect of it?

QUESTION: The reason for the delay in response or why it was that the response didn’t occur in December of 2012 when the letter was first --

MR RATHKE: Well, I think as you’re probably aware but maybe it bears repeating, we receive thousands of requests from Congress every year. We responded to this request in – it was in December of 2012 that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to the State Department and other cabinet agencies, and it requested information on the department’s policies and practices regarding the use of personal email and other forms of electronic communications. And so in March 2013 the department responded to the inquiry. We described our policies in detail. We included also relevant attachments that governed the department’s policies. So that’s – that was the nature of the response, and we continue to work closely with Congress on various issues related to the policies and procedures of the State Department.

Yeah.

QUESTION: But the (inaudible) did not answer the questions from Issa’s letter, did you?

MR RATHKE: Well, again, the chairman’s letter asked about the department’s policies and practices, and we responded on those policies and practices.

QUESTION: But the first question from Chairman Issa’s letter was: Does any senior official at the State Department use a private email account? And I did not see that in the response.

MR RATHKE: Well, we responded to the committee in detail on our policy. I don’t have anything more to add.

QUESTION: But do you acknowledge you didn’t answer the question?

MR RATHKE: Well, again, the question was focused on on the policies and practices. I don’t have anything further to add.

QUESTION: But the first question is: Does – was very specific. It said: Does anybody, any senior official, have a private email account?

MR RATHKE: Yeah. I just don’t have anything more to add on that.

QUESTION: Well, in March ‘13 did any senior official have a private email account?

MR RATHKE: Did any of them have a private email account? How do you --

QUESTION: Well, when you answered the letter, did any of them have – first of all, why – is three months the normal timeframe that it takes to respond to a --

MR RATHKE: I don’t know if I have the statistics on the length of time to respond to congressional inquiries. I mean, sometimes the response takes some time. I don’t --

QUESTION: Three months? I mean, is that --

MR RATHKE: Again, we get --

QUESTION: You said you’re deluged with them, and I’m just wondering.

MR RATHKE: We get thousands of requests. I don’t have a timeline of the average response time.

QUESTION: Okay. But the question that Lucas raises – well, the question that Chairman Issa raised in the letter was not answered, correct? I mean, it may be that by the time that you got around to answering the letter the people who had private email accounts had already left and weren’t working for the State Department anymore and --

MR RATHKE: Yeah, I’m happy to look and see if there’s – if there’s more detail on that.