The US defense secretary, Ash Carter, reportedly used a personal email account for some government business in his first months at the Pentagon, contrary to defence department rules.

The New York Times obtained 72 work-related emails that Carter, who took office in February, sent or received from his personal email account, on a variety of work-related topics including speeches, meetings and news media appearances.

The Times said the emails it received under the Freedom of Information Act were exchanges between Carter and Eric Fanning, who was his chief of staff at the time and is now the acting secretary of the army.

In one such email, Carter discussed how he had mistakenly placed a note card in a “burn bag”, the Times reported. Such bags are typically used to destroy classified documents.

Carter’s press secretary, Peter Cook, told the Times that Carter believes his use of personal email for work-related business was a mistake. Cook declined to say whether it was a violation of Pentagon email policies. Cook said Carter stopped the practice, but Cook did not say when.

“After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake,” Cook said in a statement.

“As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether,” Cook said, adding Carter had used personal emails mainly to correspond with friends and family.

The Times cited an Obama administration official as saying that when White House chief of staff Denis McDonough learned in May that Carter was using his own email account, he directed the White House Counsel’s Office to ask the Pentagon why.

Carter continued to use his own email account for at least two months after it became public in March that Hillary Clinton had used only her personal email account while she was secretary of state, according to the Times.

The email issue has dogged Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in the November 2016 election and prompted an FBI investigation.

(The Guardian)