Washington 4 Mar (ANA) - US Vice-President Mike Pence has been accused of hypocrisy after it emerged he used a private email as Indiana governor to conduct state business. He contacted advisers on terrorism and homeland security via an AOL account during his four years as governor, though he did nothing illegal. The new Indiana governor has released 30 pages of emails after a public records request, but withheld others. Mr Pence was a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton's private email server set-up. His email account was hacked last summer when many of his contacts received emails saying Mr Pence and his wife had become stranded in the Philippines and urgently needed money.

Mr Pence apologised to his contacts and changed his email address. But on Thursday he rejected any suggestion that his email situation had been the same as that of the former Democratic presidential candidate. "No, there's no comparison whatsoever between Hillary Clinton's practice of having a private server, mishandling classified information, destroying emails when they were requested by the Congress and by officials," said Mr Pence. "We have fully complied with all Indiana's laws. We had outside counsel review all of my private email records to identify any emails that ever referenced or mentioned business, state business-related activities. "And, as Indiana law requires, we transferred all of those to the state of Indiana, subject to the public access laws." (ANA)

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