UN press conference extends ‘emailgate’ as Republicans pounce on new questions about trove of private messages and call appearance ‘unspinnably bad’

There have been worse political press conferences than Hillary Clinton’s admission at the UN on Tuesday, when she attempted to address the controversy over her use of private email while serving as secretary of state head-on – and instead brought fresh scrutiny upon herself.

There was Anthony Weiner’s notorious appearance in 2011, when the congressman confessed to sending lewd pictures of himself to women on the internet – only to have his stage hijacked by the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart and producers from the Howard Stern show.

Richard Nixon lashed out at reporters during his “last press conference” in 1962, famously proclaiming “you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more”.

And, of course, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford decided to announce at a 2009 media appearance that he had been unfaithful to his wife – after returning from a secret visit to see his mistress in Argentina.

Compared to those public relations pratfalls, Clinton’s appearance before hundreds of assembled reporters – and millions following across the world – was something of a success as she prepares to run for president.

But by all other standards, the 21-minute appearance by one of the most famous politicians in the world – in a hot, crowded hallway on the second floor of the UN Secretariat Building – was nothing short of a disaster.

Hillary Clinton faces new questions over personal emails she 'chose not to keep' Read more

Clinton admitted that she “chose not to keep” a host of emails – indeed, a full 31,830 of the 62,320 she sent during her time at Foggy Bottom, her office would be forced to admit, as the episode seemed to extend what has become known as “Emailgate” rather than end it.

“I am stunned at how incompetent and terrifyingly terrible she was,” Rick Wilson, the long-time Republican campaign consultant, told the Guardian, going so far as to call Clinton’s performance “unspinnably bad”.

The former secretary of state appeared at a podium in front of the UN Security Council’s logo – the accompanying flags of member states of the Security Council had been moved to the side to cover a tapestry copy of Picasso’s Guernica – and took a full three minutes, after reiterating her stated purpose of the day to address gender equality as well as a jab at Republicans over their letter to Iran, before addressing her use of a private email address and email server while secretary of state.

She then explained her use of a private email address and server had more to do with “convenience” so that she could carry one cellphone. However, in video pulled by the Republican research group America Rising, Clinton talked about using both an iPhone and a Blackberry – two weeks ago.

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While taking questions from reporters, Clinton tried to stay on-message – she regretted using the single account in hindsight, she reiterated her eagerness for the public to read emails her team deemed official – but with every answer, it seemed, came more trouble.

Clinton appeared to contradict herself at one point, admitting that some 30,000 emails from her tenure at Foggy Bottom that she had deemed personal no longer existed. As Clinton explained in response to a question from Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith, she “chose not to keep” those emails “because they were personal and private about matters I believed were within the scope of my personal privacy and that particularly of other people”.

“They had nothing to do with work and I didn’t see any reason to keep them,” Clinton said of the emails.

Earlier in the press conference, however, Clinton indicated that all the personal emails of her and her husband remained on their private server, which is housed in their home in Chappaqua, New York.

Shortly after those fateful 21 minutes, Clinton’s team sent a nine-page memo to reporters “about an understandably confusing situation”, which attempted to clarify the contradiction: “Secretary Clinton chose not to keep her private, personal emails that were not federal records,” the statement from her office said.

At the UN, Clinton evaded questions about whether the White House knew about her private email account and if the White House counsel had approved it, saying “there are different rules governing the White House than there are governing the rest of the executive branch”.

In an interview with the Guardian, a top legal adviser at the state department during the period in question from 2009 to 2013, was similarly elusive. By nightfall, word was spreading about other Obama cabinet members: NBC’s Washington affiliate reported that the personal email of former defense secretary Chuck Hagel had on at least one occasion been used for government business; outgoing attorney general Eric Holder has reportedly alternated between several aliases.

Representative Trey Gowdy, the chair of the House select committee on Benghazi that has doggedly been pursuing Clinton, sent out a statement before Clinton Land could: “Because Secretary Clinton has created more questions than answers, the select committee is left with no choice but to call her to appear at least twice.”

Clinton’s insistence that she “fully complied with every rule I was governed under” drew quick comparisons from pundits to Al Gore’s infamous 1997 statement about fundraising that “there was no controlling legal authority”.

The stumbles – however early, and however much they continue to send down her approval ratings – raise new questions about a candidate who has already lost one presidential campaign in which she was thought to be the candidate of inevitability.

After more than a week to prepare her message for a press conference, Clinton failed to show invincibility as well.

Wilson, the Republican strategist, asked: “What is the purpose of Hillary? She has no big vision, no consequential future-oriented direction.

“It’s just a resumé run,” he added.