John Kerry Orders Probe of US State Department Email Procedures

US Secretary of State John Kerry has asked the department's inspector general to look into procedures for handling emails by State Department employees, the department said on Friday.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said the move was not specifically to investigate the handling of emails by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Clinton has been criticized for using personal email for government business when she led the department from 2009 to 2013, causing a controversy as she prepares to launch a bid for the Democratic US presidential nomination in 2016.

Kerry asked for an overall review of State Department efforts to improve records management, including email archiving and responding to Freedom of Information Act and congressional inquiries, Rathke said.

Kerry's letter, sent on Wednesday, said the State Department should "adapt our systems and policies to keep pace with changes in technology and the way our personnel work," Rathke said.

"This is an important step in improving how we communicate at the department and in ensuring that we are preserving records, and we are committed to following through on this process," Rathke said.

Clinton has been criticized for using personal email for government business when she led the department from 2009 to 2013, an unwanted controversy as she prepares to launch a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

A total of 55,000 pages of documents covering the time Clinton was in office has been turned over, according to the State Department. But Clinton and her aides controlled that process, and the emails were not archived on government servers.