Clinton told FBI investigators she did not recall sending or receiving anything on her private email account that she thought belonged on a classified server.
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During his announcement of the FBI recommendation of no charges against Clinton in July, Comey in a rare step detailed major findings of the investigation, including the finding of 113 emails which contained classified information at the time they were sent or received through Clinton’s private email system.
The FBI also said Clinton, 68, may have used 13 total mobile devices associated with her two known phone numbers that were potentially used to send emails.
An FBI document states forensic analysis found that the email of one of former President Bill Clinton’s staffers was compromised on January, 5, 2013, while Hillary was still serving as secretary of state.
According to the report, Clinton claimed during her interview that she didn’t understand that emails marked with “C” meant that they were classified. “When asked what the parenthetical “C” meant before a paragraph within the captioned email, CLINTON stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order”.
Clinton also reached out to Colin Powell one day after being sworn into office, asking him about his use of a BlackBerry while he was secretary of state from 2001 to 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported.
The controversy over Clinton’s private email server – and the deletion of about half of her emails because her attorneys deemed them personal in nature – has dogged Clinton throughout her presidential run. At another point, her staff misplaced a laptop and thumb drive of emails that still have never been found.
Clinton has repeatedly said her use of private email was allowed. Shown one July 2012 email she exchanged with President Barack Obama at his own highly secure address, Clinton indicated that she recalled sending the note on an airplane during a trip to Russian Federation.
Clinton told investigators that she thought “nonpaper” was a document with no official heading that can not be attributed to the USA government.
She said she was either unaware of or misunderstood some classification procedures. It is the first disclosure of details provided by Bryan Pagliano, the staff member who set up and maintained Clinton’s IT infrastructure.
After Clinton’s use of a private email account was publicly revealed in media accounts the following March, a House subcommittee investigating the Benghazi attacks asked for related emails to be preserved and turned over.
“Be very careful”, Powell warned Clinton, according to the 58-page summary of the FBI’s investigation released yesterday. “She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address”.
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“On more than 2,000 occasions classified material was exposed on her private server, including highly sensitive top secret information and intelligence”, he added. She said she never had any conversations about using the email server as a way to get around her legal obligations under FOIA or the Federal Records Act, which imposes requirements for retaining government documents.
