The wide scale use of e-mail as a means of communication began in the early to mid 1990's. Since that time, these have been our U. S. Secretaries of State
1993-1997 Warren Christopher
1997-2000 Madeline Albright
2001-2005 Colin Powell
2005-2008 Condoleeza Rice
2009-2013 Hillary Clinton
2013-present John Kerry
That's right, there have only been six and Clinton was the fifth.
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As best we can find out, Christopher and Albright did not use e-mail, Rice rarely did, and Powell used a personal account.
So, that means no Secretary of State before Clinton had made significant use of a government e-mail account.
Politifact tried to deal with this but was asking the wrong question. They were trying to play gotcha with a statement Chuck Schumer had made.
When Hillary Clinton took office as Secretary of State, e-mail use by persons in this position was uncharted territory. There were no rules.
If those previous Secretaries of State were not using e-mail, then how were they communicating. The bulk of that communication had to be by telephone.
So, for Secretaries of State before Clinton, were all telephone conversations recorded and transcribed?