White House calls defense chief's use of personal email for work "mistake"

The White House said on Thursday U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter made a "mistake" by using his personal email account for part of his government business, but also downplayed the consequence of the mistake as insignificant.

"He (Carter) says that those emails did not jeopardize the proper protection of classified information. So based on what has been described thus far, it clearly is a mistake because it runs counter to our policy," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest at the daily briefing.

"The consequences of that mistake at this point, however, do not seem significant," Earnest added.

The U.S. daily The New York Times revealed Wednesday night that though he was assigned a government email account in Febuary when taking office as the Pentagon chief, Carter used his personal email account to conduct part of official business during his first several months at the Pentagon.

Carter continued this practice for at least two months after it was publicly revealed in March that former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had exclusively used her personal email system during her tenure at the State Department, according to the Times.

The Pentagon in 2012 adopted a policy that bans all Defense Department employees from using their personal email account to conduct official business.

It was not clear when Carter stopped the practice, but the Times cited a White House official as saying that Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff, learned about the incident in May and ordered officials in the White House to contact the Pentagon on Carter's email practice.

In an interview with the U.S. TV network CBS News on Thursday, Carter admitted that he made a mistake that was "entirely my own," adding that he stopped using his private email account "a few months ago."

However, Carter's account of how often he used the private email account contradicted the words by the Times.

In his interview with CBS News, Carter said he only occasionally used his iPhone to communicate with staff about administrative matters and never sent classified information via his personal account.

The Times report, however, cited a former aide to Carter as saying that Carter used the personal email account "so frequently that members of his staff feared he would be hacked and worried about his not following the rules."

Also, earlier on Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator John McCain said in a statement that his committee would conduct a review to ensure that sensitive information was not compromised. Enditem