Hillary Clinton breaks silence on email scandal, says 'sorry' for the first time

Hillary Clinton has spoken up about her email scandal, saying that it was a "mistake" to use a private email server. The Democratic presidential candidate has also offered her first apology in an interview on Tuesday.

“I do think I could have and should have done a better job answering questions earlier. I really didn’t perhaps appreciate the need to do that,” Clinton told ABC News’ David Muir.

"What I had done was allowed, it was above board. But in retrospect, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts. One for personal, one for work-related emails. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.” She added.

This is the first time and Clinton addressed the issue directly. Previously, Associated Press quoted Clinton saying that she will not apologise for the incident because "what I did was allowed." The candidate had to turn over around 55,000 page of work-related emails in the previous year at the request of the State Department. Furthermore, the FBI has also taken custody of the server after Clinton refused to surrender until August. Clinton further referred to her long political career when ABC News asked if she can endure the ongoing FBI investigation.

“As you might guess I’ve been around a while, lots of attacks, questions raised. I can survive it because I’m running to be president, to do what the country needs done,” she said in the interview.

“I believe the American people will respond to that.”

Even so, the apology is under scrutiny. RNC National Press Secretary Allison Moore believed that the only thing Clinton was regretful of was that she got caught and her polls suffering as a result. Moore also criticised the candidate saying that her reckless attempt to gloss over government transparency laws is risking national security. It will be hard to trust her in the White House, Moore added.

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