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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton apologised for confusing people with her personal e-mail use as secretary of state even as she defended the practice's propriety.
"At the end of the day, I am sorry that this has been confusing to people and raised a lot of questions," Clinton told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell in the most extensive interview she's done on the issue in the six months since her reliance on a private e-mail server was first exposed.
"I certainly wish that I had made a different choice," Clinton said, later adding: "I take responsibility and it wasn't the best choice." Still, she said, the practice was, in her view, "allowed and it was fully above board."
Clinton's comments reflect the more contrite tone she's adopted in the past 10 days, a course correction after she made jokes about the e-mail issue that landed with a thud. She is now more reflective and apologetic, though there's still an air of self-preservation as she insists that more Americans will understand her perspective if they listen to her explanation.
The issue has contributed to declining favorability ratings, something that campaign chairman John Podesta acknowledged Thursday when he told reporters that the campaign had faced "some headwinds, particularly around the e-mail question."
Asked how she responds to being called a liar or untrustworthy, Clinton said, "Certainly, it doesn't make me feel good. But I am very confident that by the time this campaign has run its course, people will know that what I have been saying is accurate."
Clinton and her team have said that one of the best opportunities for her to explain herself will come on October 22, when she is scheduled to publicly testify before the Republican-led House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. That appearance, she said, will be "long and gruelling."
Clinton said her decision to rely on a private e-mail account was made on the fly as she took office in early 2009. "There was so much work to be done," she said. "We had so many problems around the world. I didn't really stop and think, what kind of e-mail system will there be?" But she insisted the issue doesn't raise questions about her judgment more broadly.
She also said that the account was used responsibly and that she has always been careful in handling classified information. "I take classified material very, very seriously, and we followed all the rules," she said.
Clinton has faced questions about her decision to wipe her private server clean after her lawyers sorted through her messages late last year to give any that could possibly be considered official records back to the State Department. Clinton said the lawyers "went through every single e-mail" and "were overly inclusive" in deciding what to hand over to the department, which is releasing batches of thousands of messages on a monthly basis in accordance with a judge's order. The department "has everything that they could have" and her team was so inclusive that the department will be returning 1,200 e-mails to Clinton that were entirely personal in nature, she said.
The public releases of her messages have shown that information sent to her-and at least a handful of e-mails she sent-contained material that the government later deemed classified.
Turning to the rise of billionaire Donald Trump in the Republican presidential race, Clinton said "it's an unfortunate development in American politics that his campaign is all about who he's against."
Trump, who signed a Republican Party loyalty pledge on Thursday vowing not to run as an independent if he loses the party's nomination, is "great at innuendo and conspiracy theories and really defaming people," Clinton said.
"He's attacked so many people," she said. "I do regret that he's going after so many people, many of them by name."
Those people include Clinton's longtime aide Huma Abedin, the campaign's vice chair, and Abedin's husband, former Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat who resigned after being caught up in a sexting scandal.
