In the Loop: Hillary Clinton’s U.N. news conference seen as rare and inaccessible

By Colby Itkowitz and Al Kamen March 10 at 12:55 PM

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton speaks during a Gates Foundation event in New York, March 9, 2015. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

The United Nations is not a typical backdrop for an American politician to address a domestic political “scandal.” In fact, it might be unprecedented.

But that’s the chosen venue of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to take questions (the first news conference since she left office) – which everyone knows will focus on her use of private e-mails to conduct all her government correspondence.

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson said he could not recall a similar occasion during his tenure when the United Nations was used for a personal political reason, although he noted that “celebrities and movie stars have had press events [at the United Nations] but only for plugging U.N. causes.”

Another top State Department official in the George H.W. Bush administration said there was nothing like it during that administration.

And before it was confirmed, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Foundation, a group that promotes U.N. work, was dubious that Clinton would hold a media avail there because it’d be so difficult for reporters to hastily get media accreditation.

“I would think after her speech she’ll go somewhere [for her news conference],” the spokeswoman said.

But not the case. Clinton, who is giving an address at a women’s conference Tuesday afternoon at the United Nations., will then “do a brief press conference after following her speech” there, Clinton spokesman Neil Merrill said in an e-mail to reporters. He promised they were working to get reporters access to the building and told our colleague Phil Rucker not to “climb on board the RNC’s Malarkey Express” and that they’ve “been working double-time to make this work with the help of USUN, and want to be as inclusive as possible.”

But some Washington reporters weren’t buying it.

Now by tradition, the first question at a U.N. news conferences is asked by the president of the U.N. Correspondents Association. But Giampaolo Pioli, of the Italian paper Quotidiano Nazionale (National Daily) is in the Central African Republic. We reached him there, and he said one of the other officers would do the honors. If they follow protocol, next in line would be the UNCA first vice president Kahraman Haliscelik, the New York correspondent for TRT Turkish Radio & TV.

Then after that maybe someone from Sri Lanka would like to weigh in on the 2016 presidential election? Or perhaps a correspondent from Russia is interested in the contents of Clinton’s e-mails with Vladimir Putin?

Colby Itkowitz is a national reporter for In The Loop.

Al Kamen, an award-winning columnist on the national staff of The Washington Post, created the “In the Loop” column in 1993.