WASHINGTON — Caroline Kennedy used a personal e-mail account for official business as US ambassador to Japan, a State Department audit revealed Tuesday.
The agency’s inspector general reviewed operations at the embassy between January and March — just as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state was coming to light — and raised questions about its own e-mail practices.
Inspector General Steve Linick said his office “confirmed that senior embassy staff,” including Kennedy, “used personal e-mail accounts to send and receive messages containing official business.” Such conduct can lead to “data loss, hacking, phishing and spoofing of e-mail accounts, as well as inadequate protections for personally identifiable information,” according to the report.
State Department spokesman John Kirby insisted Kennedy did nothing wrong.
“It is not prohibited to use private e-mail. It is discouraged, obviously,” he said. “We recognize there are circumstances where there may be no other choice.”
President Obama’s nomination of Kennedy, the daughter of John F. Kennedy, to the prestigious post got a burst of global publicity in 2013 and a warm welcome in Japan — although the report highlights deficiencies in Kennedy’s management of a $94 million operation with 727 employees.
The report also observed: “The ambassador does not have extensive experience leading and managing an institution the size of the US Mission to Japan,” and relies on top staffers with unclear roles.
Embassy Chief of Staff Debra DeShong Reed, a former longtime spokeswoman for Democratic lawmakers and for the Kerry-Edwards 2004 presidential campaign, came in for particular criticism.
Inspectors “found a misunderstanding on the part of the chief of staff and the ambassador regarding the responsibilities of an embassy public-affairs operation.”