PolitiFact: Can Jeb Bush claim he’s released all his emails?

TAMPA, Fla.- Jeb Bush is stepping up his attacks on Hillary Clinton’s private emails in an ad released on August 27.

Bush also used a private email server during his time as Florida governor, and claims he released all of those emails to the public.

The ad title ‘transparency v. Secrecy’ uses a series of television newscast snippets on Clinton’s controversial private server.

It also contains a clip of Bush from a campaign event.

“My email address, write it down, and send me your thoughts, jeb@jeb.org,” Bush says to a crowd in Iowa on August 14.

“By the way, I just gave out my email address. It’s exactly what I did when I was governor of the state of Florida. I released all my emails; I’m writing an e-book about my emails.”

Our team of independent researchers at PolitiFact looked into Bush’s statement.

PolitiFact rated the claim MOSTLY FALSE.

Bush said, “I released all my emails.”

“He’s trying to make this distinction that he did not do the same things that Hillary did, that’s really not the case,” PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin said.

Florida law requires officials to turn over emails related to government business when they leave office. It’s up to those officials to self-select what falls under “government business.”

“We’re not saying that Bush did not follow the law, but he did not say I turned over everything as required by law. He said he turned over ALL his emails, and that’s just not accurate,” Gillin said.

PolitiFact reached out to the state archives for the exact number of emails from Bush’s account, but has not received a response.

In 2007, Bush said in an interview that his private server had about 550,000 messages on it. To date, he’s released about 280,000.

“The truth is, we’re never really going to know how many there were or what the ones that we didn’t see were about,” Gillin said.

To read the entire fact-check, click here.