A New York Times report suggested that the State Department's official reply to a congressional inquiry into personal email use by government employees showed malfeasance by Hillary Clinton and her former department. But according to documents obtained by Media Matters, other federal agencies responded in a similar manner, undermining the Times' report.

This additional context shows that rather than revealing a case of wrongdoing by Clinton, the Times has discovered that Cabinet agencies don't always respond to congressional inquiries quickly and in full.

The Times reported in an April 14 article that Clinton “was directly asked” in a December 13, 2012, letter from House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa “whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state” but that “Mrs. Clinton did not reply to the letter. And when the State Department answered in March 2013, nearly two months after she left office, it ignored the question and provided no response.” According to the Times, State provided only a “description of the department's email policies” rather than a direct response to Issa's question.

The article has triggered a firestorm of news coverage, with several outlets reporting that Clinton “ignored” the congressional request.

Clinton was not the only one to receive such a letter. As the Times article notes, similar letters were sent to “other executive agencies” as part of a broad Oversight inquiry into the use of private email by government employees. The Hill embedded the letter, which includes a note indicating that it was sent out to 18 Cabinet secretaries on the same date.

The letter requested answers to eight specific questions, including “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal e-mail account to conduct official business?”

But in suggesting that Clinton had failed to respond promptly and with sufficient depth, the Times gave no indication it had attempted to compare State's response to those of the other agencies who also received the letter, to determine if State's response was actually unusual. The Times article, published two days after Clinton announced a presidential run, instead was based solely on a copy of Issa's letter and the State response that were obtained from “a congressional official.”

Media Matters has obtained the responses from two other agencies: the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Both letters to Issa provide a description of department policies rather than direct responses to the congressional inquiry, and one was sent a month later than State's.

The Labor Department responded to Issa's letter on April 26, 2013. The congressional inquiry had been sent to then-Secretary Hilda Solis, who stepped down before Labor responded, just as Clinton had stepped down as Secretary of State between State's receipt of and response to Issa's letter.

In his response, Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs Brian Kennedy did not directly address Issa's inquiry about whether Solis had used personal email, instead stating that the Department “takes seriously its responsibility to ensure that DOL officials and employees are educated on and comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations governing official communications and document management policies” and providing a general overview of Department policies, specifically on social media.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development responded to Issa's inquiry on January 11, 2013. Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations Peter A. Kovar wrote that the “forwarding of HUD email by HUD employees to their personal email account is permitted only in narrow circumstances,” but noted that “originators” of emails on any system are “responsible for determining the record value of any transmission.” HUD did not directly address Issa's inquiry into whether former HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan had ever used a personal email account to conduct government business.

The New York Times was previously forced to walk back their sloppy reporting on Clinton's personal email account and began to quietly reverse course on their stance on the matter after the publication's public editor conceded the original story “was not without fault” and “should have been much clearer about precisely what regulations might have been violated.” Despite the initial report's suggestion that Clinton violated federal record keeping rules, the Times' key source later clarified that Clinton in fact did not “violate” the law. Others in the media have consequently retracted their own baseless claims made in the rush to scandalize Clinton's emails.