Twice in 2010, information management staff at the State Department raised concerns that Clinton’s email practices failed to meet federal records-keeping requirements.
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Hillary Clinton broke government rules by using a private email server without approval for her work as U.S. secretary of state, an internal government watchdog said on Wednesday. The IG report out Wednesday confirmed Clinton violated federal regulations with the use of her private email server, despite her constant claims to the contrary.
The report, which also found problems in department record-keeping practices before Clinton’s tenure, undermined Clinton’s earlier defenses of her emails, likely adding to Democratic anxieties about public perceptions of the candidate.
Clinton has been dogged by questions about her email practices for more than a year, since AP revealed that the clintonemail.com server was in the basement of Clinton’s NY home while she served as the nation’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.
In addition, the report noted that there were a number of hacking attempts against Clinton’s server and warnings from senior State Department officials that hackers were targeting personal email accounts.
The State Department has released more than 52,000 pages of Clinton’s work-related emails, including some that have since been classified.
An official statement from campaign spokesman Brian Fallon stopped just short of claiming that the inspector general’s report was actually a vindication. She did so only about two years later, in December 2014.
He did not address the report’s criticism of Clinton’s use of a private server, something no other secretary of state has done.
Despite the report noting that it found “longstanding, systemic weaknesses” in the department, Clinton’s indiscretions were singled out as “more serious”, according to the Associated Press.
Starting in 2009, there was a new, electronic system, known as SMART, to properly archive department emails without having to print and file them, but Ms. Clinton opted not to use it, out of concern that there was “overly broad access to sensitive materials”.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have also been investigating whether Clinton’s email setup put government secrets at risk.
Secretary of State John Kerry also acknowledged to the inspector general that he had used a personal account at times during his transition between leaving the Senate and joining the State Department, but that after becoming secretary and discussing the issue with aides, he “began primarily using his Department email account to conduct official business”. Her chief of staff, deputy chiefs of staff and her technology gurus all refused to cooperate with the probe.
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The report contradicted Clinton’s repeated assertion that her server was allowed and that no permission was needed. Her technical support advisor told operations staff “someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt [sic] want to let them have the chance to”. Officials told investigators that they “did not – and would not – approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business”.
