While he was vice president, Joe Biden received sensitive communications via his private email accounts created under a fictitious identity, including foreign policy discussions with his national security adviser, schedules of meetings with Cabinet secretaries and a summary of at least one intelligence briefing to President Barack Obama.

Under the law, such communications are supposed to occur on secure government email systems and to date Biden has not offered any explanation why his private email account was used.

Ironically, Biden was vice-president when President Obama introduced on his first day in office, the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, boasting that it would usher in "a new era of open and accountable government meant to bridge the gap between the American people and their government."