Loretta Lynch, President Obama's last attorney-general, used a secret email address for official business under the name Elizabeth Carlisle, it has been revealed.

Lynch used the account to discuss her notorious meeting on a plane with Bill Clinton while his wife's own email scandal was being investigated by the FBI.

The disclosure is the latest blow to the reputation of the woman who had once been the country's most senior law enforcement official.

She had to step aside from deciding on whether to charge Hillary Clinton with breaking the law for having her secret server in alleged breach of national security law because of her meeting Bill Clinton on her private plane in Phoenix, Arizona.

That was followed by James Comey, the sacked FBI director, revealing in devastating testimony to the Senate that she had ordered him to call the Clinton investigation a 'matter'.

Stepping into a crisis: Loretta Lynch's decision to let Bill Clinton meet her on her own government jet has battered her reputation and led to a secret email account being revealed

Hand forced: Lynch had to give up oversight of the Clinton investigation and left James Comey, the FBI director, decide on charging the Democratic candidate for the presidency over her secret email system

This is how open government works: Just one of the many pages redacted before being released by the Department of Justice

Another Clinton scandal: Loretta Lynch is the latest to feel the toxic effect of coming into the orbit of the Clintons

THE POLITICIANS WHO CAN'T EVEN TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR OWN NAMES Loretta Lynch joins a long list of - mainly - Democrats with strange aliases. Her Elizabeth Carlisle identity is tame by comparison with the rest. Carlos Danger - The most notorious of them all: Anthony Weiner T Dog - The alias he used to sext a minor, for which he will be sentence next month Diane Reynolds - Chelsea Clinton's main alias, revealed in hacked emails Anna James - Chelsea Clinton's other alias Lew Alcindor, Henry Yearwood, or David Kendricks - Eric Holder's three fake names, all with real DoJ email accounts hdr29@hrcoffice.com - Hillary Clinton's infamous secret email, at best signed 'H'. REDACTED - Huma Abedin revealed in an interview with the FBI that President Obama used a pseudonym to email Hillary's secret address. It has never come to light. John Miller - Donald Trump allegedly posed as a non-existent publicist to speak about himself in the early 1990s. John Barron / Baron - See above - and perhaps surprisingly, he used it before the birth of his youngest son Barron Trump Advertisement

Lynch has issued no statement since Comey's evidence under oath and is now facing calls from Republicans to be the focus of a special counsel investigation into the 2016 election.

It would be separate from Robert Mueller's probe into allegations the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

The latest twist in the Clinton scandal was revealed as hundreds of pages of Department of Justice documents were published after legal action by the conservative campaign groups Judicial Watch and the American Center for Law and Justice.

It is not illegal for government officials to use a pseudonym, as long as their records are preserved.

Lynch's attorney, Robert Raben, told the Daily Caller that she had done so to keep her inbox manageable.

'That address was and is known to the individuals who process [Freedom of Information Act] requests; the practice, similar to using initials or numbers in an email, helps guard against security risks and prevent inundation of mailboxes,' he said.

Lynch's address appears to be inspired by her family, as Elizabeth Carlisle was her grandmother's maiden name, while her own middle name is also Elizabeth.

Her predecessor Eric Holder had three email addresses. The most notorious was Lew Alcindor, the birth name of basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, while before that he had gone under the names Henry Yearwood, apparently a combination of family members' names, and David Kendricks, from two members of The Four Tops.

Lynch was involved in a series of exchanges under her secret name, but it was clear that those who were involved in the emails knew who Elizabeth Carlisle was.

The content of the Lynch emails show how her officials panicked about the revelation of the meeting with Bill Clinton at the end of June 2016.

Her head of public affairs, Melanie Newman, repeatedly asked to speak by phone with reporters asking questions about the meeting - which means it is impossible to know what she said to them.

One NPR reporter told her it was a 'bad perception problem', while when she was asked whether Lynch was guaranteeing she would accept whatever recommendation was made by her staff on prosecuting Clinton, Newman wanted to deal with the question by phone.

Lynch recused herself eventually in a firestorm of criticism, and days later, in July, Comey cleared Clinton.

Have you seen Lew Alcindor, Henry Yearwood, or David Kendricks? All three were in fact bogus identities for Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch's predecessor

The documents also reveal how the Department of Justice tried to provide 'talking points' to the FBI on the meeting, and called in a former assistant attorney general who Judicial Watch said is a friend of John Podesta, who was Clinton's chief of staff.

Newman also wrote 'talking points' for Lynch herself before she was asked about the meeting.

Many of the documents were heavily blacked out despite being issued under the Freedom of Information Act.

Page after page of blacked out copy covers the 'talking points' being edited and even their final version.

One official told her colleagues 'there are a lot of angry people...' then used a sad-face emoji.

And the attempts by her team to influence the media are also spelled out.

At one point Marshall Miller, a former senior DoJ official, emailed saying her had been asked to go on Fox News to discuss the unfolding scandal and asked if Lynch's spin team had anyone they could suggest in his place.

And the FBI asked for 'guidance' on what it could say about a report that agents guarding Lynch had ordered 'no photos' on the tarmac

Such an order would be in breach of the First Amendment and it is unclear why the FBI would need 'guidance' on what to say about it if its agents had been acting lawfully.

Newman again avoided having any response recorded on email by saying to an official 'can someone call me'.