Clinton Staffer Huma Abedin 'Tried to Do the Right Thing' With Email

— -- Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's senior advisor as Secretary of State and current campaign vice-chairman, said in a deposition this week that she "always tried to do the right thing" in terms of using email while working with Clinton at the State Department.

The transcript of the deposition was released today by the conservative-action group Judicial Watch, which is suing the State Department for records related to Abedin's employment status while she worked for both Clinton at the State Department and an outside group.

A judge in the case has ruled basic discovery should include an understanding of how Clinton used her email, and this allowed many of Clinton's former staffers to be deposed.

The scope of inquiry covers Abedin and Clinton's use of a controversial private email server. Unlike Clinton, Abedin also had an email address provided by the State Department and she told lawyers did the "vast majority" of her work on that government account, according to the deposition transcript. In that same interview Abedin said she used the private email address "for the Clinton family matters" and for her own personal email.

Abedin said she didn't remember being told not to use private email for work-related purposes, suggesting she knew that practice would have been wrong.

"I always tried to do the right thing and tried to be on my State.gov BlackBerry," Abedin said in the deposition. Moments later she clarified slightly, saying she believed the use of a private email was allowed. "Did I think I wasn't allowed to use Clinton e-mail? No. I thought I -- I thought that was permitted. But my -- my practice was to use State.gov," Abedin said, referencing the State Department's email domain.

Abedin also said that in one instance both she and Clinton grew frustrated with the fact that Clinton's email message sent from her private account were going into the State Department's spam folder, according to the transcript. At one point she said it cause a communication failure that resulted in Clinton missing a call with a foreign dignitary. "So she wasn't able to do her job, do what she needed to do," Abedin said of the incident in her deposition.

Abedin also said she and Clinton were the only ones at the State Department using Clinton's private email server, which at the time was located at the Clinton's family home in Chappaqua, NY.

Clinton has apologized for her use of a private email -- first doing so in an interview with ABC News -- but she has always maintained that she did nothing illegal, particularly as it concerned her handling of sensitive information. The FBI is still investigating the use of the private server, and officials familiar with the probe do not believe the bureau will find any criminal wrongdoing.

Last month the State Department's inspector general found that she would not have been approved to use a private email had she asked in the first place. The Clinton campaign and Abedin have yet to respond to a request for comment.

The State Department said it would not comment on Abedin's statements as it is a matter of ongoing litigation.