Hillary Clinton 'Fights' With White House Operator Who Doesn't Believe It's Her Calling

A newly released email shows Clinton has a hard time getting through to the W.H.

ByABC News
September 30, 2015, 6:45 PM

— -- It seems it's not enough to be Hillary Clinton -- or sound like the former Secretary of State -- to get directly through to the White House.

When Rep. Diane Watson was about to announce her retirement from Congress back in 2010, Clinton was hoping to call the California Democrat, but was tied up with an unexpected hurdle on another call.

"I'd like to call her. But right now I'm fighting w the WH operator who doesn't believe I am who I say," a frustrated Clinton wrote in an email sent to her aide Huma Abedin February 2010.

When the operator asked for her direct-office line, it seems Clinton couldn't provide it because she didn't know what it was.

“I told him I had no idea what my direct office # was since I didn't call myself,” Clinton wrote.

Clinton eventually gave up tussling with the White House operator. The former secretary of State wrote to Abedin that she hung up and planned to get through to the White House "like a proper and properly dependent Secretary of State -- no independent dialing allowed."

The email was released by the State Department today along with about 6,300 pages of email from Clinton's private account she kept when she was secretary of State.