Bill Clinton’s staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found.

A Clinton spokesman also emphasized that no taxpayer money was used to purchase or maintain a private email server operated for the former president’s staff starting in 2007, which Hillary Clinton started using in 2009. Her use of the server to send emails as secretary of state has become the center of a swirling controversy about whether she skirted public records laws or State Department rules or compromised the security of top-secret national security information. The server was funded entirely out of Bill Clinton’s pocket, according to his office.

Politico addressed the issue by adjusting the headline of Vogel’s article: ‘Bill Clinton aides used tax dollars to subsidize foundation, private email support.’ The change finds an explanation at the foot of the article: ‘Note: The headline on this story has been revised to reflect that GSA funds were used for IT support.’ As for the article itself, a Politico spokesman said it is ‘one hundred percent accurate and remains unchanged.’ The headline change doesn’t exactly have the Clinton folks celebrating: ‘That is a stretch, too, given Cooper was also paid out of personal funds, and it does not put the genie back in the bottle in terms of other outlets that are now citing Politico to say taxpayers footed the bill for the purchase of the personal email server,’ writes Fallon to the Erik Wemple Blog.

In at least one instance, GSA paid to purchase and maintain a specialty Lockheed Martin database system called Intranet Quorom, the supporting systems for which were housed at one time at the Clinton Foundation’s offices, and used by both foundation staff and Bill Clinton’s personal office staff to store and process his correspondence.

The Clinton aide said servers supporting the Intranet Quorom system — which is used for data storage, not email — were the only pieces of equipment purchased by GSA that were housed at the Clinton Foundation at one point, but he said it was justified by the specific circumstances around it.

As staff needs to have the full picture of all correspondence sent by President Clinton, both staff from the Office of the Former President and the Foundation have access to, and can input into, the Intranet Quorum database,” the aide said.

The Clinton Foundation’s website suggests that there’s a strict wall between the foundation and the ex-president’s personal office. ‘All Foundation employees are paid for work through the Foundation payroll,’ the website says. ‘No Foundation staff are paid for Foundation work with taxpayer dollars.’ But the aide acknowledged ‘staff at the Foundation and staff at the Office of the Former President may have similar tasks, and need to coordinate this work — specifically staff that handles President Clinton’s correspondence.’ That shared work is facilitated by the Lockheed Martin IQ database system, the aide said.

To varying degrees, foundations associated with each former president are involved with the office operations. While the foundations themselves do not pay any portion of the office rental cost, they do assist office operations by supplying some furniture and equipment. At former President Carter’s office, which is leased from the Carter Presidential Center—a nonprofit foundation—two staff members of the Center use office space paid for by GSA. Simultaneously, however, GSA does not pay for other Center space that is used exclusively by former President Carter or his staff.

But the system’s dual purpose raised questions among GSA officials, who pressed Clinton’s representatives when they submitted an invoice in September 2011 to the GSA to purchase a $7,700 Dell server and other IT equipment to support the Lockheed Martin IQ database. Clinton Foundation officials explained to the GSA that they wanted the Dell server housed at foundation headquarters rather than at Clinton’s personal office. They explained in an email that the foundation office had better air conditioning, allowing it to support ‘about 10-15 more servers,’ and also it was where IT staff were based, so ‘trouble shooting with the servers can be done ASAP.’ The GSA staff asked Graham, then serving as the foundation’s COO, to demonstrate that ‘safeguards are in place to ensure that the servers are solely for use by’ Clinton’s personal office. A note affixed to the bottom of an email produced pursuant to POLITICO’s FOIA indicates that the GSA ultimately decided not to purchase the Dell server. Asked about the reasoning this week, a GSA spokesman suggested that Clinton’s representatives failed to provide sufficient evidence that the Dell server was not for use by the foundation.

But, perhaps highlighting the confusion caused by the overlapping spheres in the Clinton’s universe, the Clinton aide offered a different recollection. ‘We believe that the information GSA provided you with is incomplete. Our files show that GSA purchased the Dell server that operates the IQ database in 2010.’

A GSA spokesperson declined to comment on specific employees, but said ex-presidents have broad discretion over how they choose to divvy up the $96,600 they are provided each year for staffing. They can give the entire sum to a single employee or divide it among multiple employees.

A representative for Clinton in 2001 told the Government Accountability Office that, in addition to the GSA money, ‘some staff compensation will be paid by the former president and his presidential foundation,’ according to a 2001 GAO report. It made clear that most employees on the GSA payrolls of former presidents ‘also receive compensation from other sources.’

The office staffs of former presidents’ ranged from 6 to 19 persons and included full-time and part-time paid members along with volunteers and interns. In addition to receiving federal compensation, most paid staff members also receive compensation from other sources. These sources include the former presidents and his or his spouses’ foundations.

Generally, the aide explained that Clinton ‘wears several hats — among them being former President of the United States and the founder of the Clinton Foundation. His staffing reflects those roles.’ The aide added ‘there is no legal prohibition that would preclude the former president’s staff from receiving compensation from other sources or doing personal work for the former presidents. We are unaware of any legal prohibition that would preclude these activities.’

According to several people familiar with the former president’s operation, the rationale behind the interwoven payrolls is that they allow for a small team to assist Clinton in a variety of settings without having to do logistically complicated hockey-like line changes. In a given day, Clinton might deliver a paid private speech (during which time his employees’ salaries could be paid by the executive services corporation) and a public speech in his capacity as a former president (during which his staff could be paid by the GSA funds). And he could attend events for the foundation (where staff time would be paid by the foundation) as well as his wife’s presidential campaign (staff time would be paid by the campaign).