FBI Director James Comey said that while Clinton and her aides had been “extremely careless”, there was no evidence they intentionally mishandled classified information.
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Clinton told investigators that she was unaware that her aide had deleted the e-mails in 2015. At the time, the USA generally did not acknowledge drone strikes.
While the report arguably contains no smoking gun, it does raise new questions about why Clinton aides physically destroyed her mobile devices, and why many of her potentially work-related emails were deleted after the existence of the server was disclosed a year ago. But she said she had no intention of removing classification markings, and she said she couldn’t recall actually receiving a “nonpaper” fax in that instance. So, as Shannen Coffin, a former DOJ attorney, recently explained in an article at the Weekly Standard, “To fix that problem, Mills conveniently claimed that she did not know anything about Clinton’s email setup during her tenure at the State Department and only learned of relevant facts in her later capacity as Mrs. Clinton’s personal lawyer”.
Bryan Pagliano, a Clinton aide who helped administer the server, was interviewed in the FBI’s investigation. Clinton “could not recall any briefing or training by State” about retaining federal records or handling 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. “CLINTON believed the email amounted to “condolence call” and questioned the classification level”. The FBI recommended no charges be brought against her.
The daily schedules drew attention last week after the AP reviewed the two years of schedules released so far, plus Clinton’s official calendars.
Her departure came about a month after she suffered a concussion and blood clot.
After completing nearly four years in office, the former secretary of state said she didn’t receive briefings regarding the preservation or production of records as she began transitioning out of her job in early 2013. “And that’s what she was saying”, he added.
According to reports released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 2, she was shown an email with a “C” marking on it, indicating that it was classified, Clinton told the Federal Bureau of Investigation she thought the letter was there to help organise the paragraphs alphabetically. “Clinton’s secret email server was an end-run around government transparency laws that wound up jeopardizing our national security and sensitive diplomatic efforts”.
Instead, the said, “There is so much unfinished business that directly affects the lives of the American people” -such as Zika funding and gun control – “that’s what we have to get on with”. And she did little to keep her account a secret. “I have yet to see a single foundation email produced by the State Department that was sent by her”.
Clinton and her legal team deleted thousands more emails she claimed were personal and private.
“According to an Federal Bureau of Investigation summary of its interview with Mrs Clinton, she said she didn’t remember an e-mail that had passages marked with a small “(c)”, for classified, in the text.
In his congressional hearing in July, FBI Director James Comey told USA lawmakers that the FBI found no basis to conclude that Clinton had lied to the agency. The FBI found no evidence a foreign actor successfully hacked the server, although it did discover evidence suggesting attempts to do so were made.
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The new details continued to fill out a portrait of Clinton as not particularly tech-savvy or eager to embrace new technology. That was three weeks after Clinton’s email revelation and the House Benghazi committee’s order that Clinton and her tech consultants retain all of her email records.
