Documents released by the FBI Friday revealed new details about the Justice Department’s yearlong investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and whether she and her aides mishandled classified information.
Advertisement
“After Congress subpoenaed documents, after the FOIA requests, after the New York Times laid out that she had a private server, what did she do?”
“After reviewing an email dated April 9, 2012, with subject line “Call to President Banda, ‘ CLINTON stated she did not remember the email specifically”, the FBI’s notes say”.
The State Department’s Inspector General later said this was not an appropriate way to preserve government records and that Clinton should have printed and filed work emails from her private server.
Those and other revelations from the FBI’s report are giving new ammunition to Republicans outraged by the Justice Department’s decision not to indict the Democratic presidential nominee.
Clinton regarded emails containing classified discussions about planned drone strikes as “routine”. Though the marking was meant to connote that the material was “confidential” – the lowest level of classification – Clinton said she wasn’t sure.
Clinton has said that in hindsight she regretted using a private email system while secretary of state.
While Powell did not respond to the Journal following this latest release of information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he did respond to the New York Times’ August report, explaining that his use of a personal email account (he never used a private server) for non-classified communications “vastly improved communications within the State Department”.
Clinton and her legal team deleted thousands more emails she claimed were personal and private. Not only were numerous sections redacted, but the files showed the Federal Bureau of Investigation could not obtain 13 Clinton mobile devices that may have been used to send emails from her personal email address, in addition to two iPads.
Republicans have repeatedly attacked Clinton over the issue, helping drive opinion polls that show many US voters doubt her trustworthiness.
But it the focus is on sensitive data falling into the wrong hands, Kaine argued the most egregious act by far was Trump publicly stating that Russian Federation should try to find Clinton’s missing emails.
In March 2015, Clinton had said she never carried more than one device and use her mobile for both work and personal emails.
Mrs Clinton also said she did not pay attention to the differences between levels of classification, such as “top secret” and “secret”, indicating that she took “all classified information seriously”.
According to State Department documents released by Judicial Watch, Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin was working on securing diplomatic passports for Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band and an associate.
He said he planned to seek answers from Clinton about the deletions.
When used in documents, the capital “C” marks paragraphs that are “Confidential”, the lowest tier of classified information.
When presented with the email, she said she believed she was asking Sullivan to remove the State Department letterhead and to provide unclassified talking points.
According to the FBI investigation, a former Clinton aide named Monica Hanley often purchased replacement BlackBerrys for Clinton.
Advertisement
Kaine, a USA senator from Virginia who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, told ABC’s program “This Week”, that the volume of information received by government officials often makes it hard to know what information has been declared classified.
