Pence used private email for public business as Indiana governor

US Vice President Mike Pence used a private email account for matters of public business as governor of Indiana, his office said in a statement on Thursday.

The private email account was first reported by the Indianapolis Star, which said Pence used it at times to discuss sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

The account was hacked last summer, the newspaper added.

In one email, Indiana’s top security adviser messaged Pence with an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men being held on terror charges.

However, the report did not make clear whether any sensitive information was compromised during the hack.

The Star, which obtained the emails in a public records request, said that in response to its investigation the Vice President's office confirmed that "Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal account."

"As Governor, Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention," his office told the paper.

Indiana law does not bar public officials from using personal email, but generally does require that messages connected to official business be kept for public information purposes.

"Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law, and are being managed according to Indiana's Access to Public Records Act," his office continued.

An unspecified number of emails were not released to the paper because they were deemed to be confidential.

After Pence was hacked in June by a scammer who sent a plea for money to his email contacts, the governor set up a new AOL account, the Star reported.

Pence was chosen by then-Republican candidate Donald Trump as his running mate in July for the 2016 campaign trail.

Pence had criticised the Republican's rival Hillary Clinton for using a private email server for official communications, a scandal that haunted her throughout the race, accusing her of trying to keep her emails out of public reach and exposing classified information to potential hackers.

Pence spokesman Marc Lotter called any comparisons between Pence and Clinton "absurd," noting that Pence didn't deal with federally classified information as governor.