Journalists and onlookers watch live television as FBI Director James Comey speaks about U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while U.S. Secretary of State, in Charlotte, North Carolina July 5, 2016.
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The notes and investigative report made public Friday offer a glimpse into the yearlong probe that led up that recommendation.
Hillary Clinton told federal investigators she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling government records while USA secretary of state because of a concussion suffered in 2012, according to a summary of the probe released on Friday. “Additional information related to this investigation that the FBI releases in the future will be placed on the Vault, the FBI’s electronic FOIA library”.
It also released a summary of its overall investigation.
Some Republicans saw the files as confirming their belief that the Department of Justice should have prosecuted Clinton.
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.
While she was aware that she was an original classification authority, she could not recall how often she used that authority or “any training or guidance provided by State” on how to use it.
“Be very careful”, Powell advised Clinton, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He warned her if she used a BlackBerry to “do business”, her emails could become official public records. Republicans have used the email issue to argue that Clinton is not trustworthy and should not be elected.
The Clinton campaign insisted that the concussion was not her excuse for not handling the material properly, but was her explanation for why she only worked a few hours a day at the time, not why she forgot so much of what she did at the time.
The FBI interview reveals serious timeline gaps that still remain, with entire sections and pages redacted from the media and the public.
“The FBI did find that hostile foreign actors successfully gained access to the personal email accounts of individuals with whom Clinton was in regular contact and, in doing so, obtained emails sent to or received by Clinton on her personal account”, the notes said. She estimated that “at least a hundred, if not several hundred” State Department employees had her email address.
The affected email account belonged to a member of Bill Clinton’s staff.
During the interview, the two FBI investigators discussed specific emails with Clinton, as well as the context surrounding them.
“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”.
Either way, Clinton said she treated the content of the email as a “condolence call” and questioned the classification level. When changing phones, her data-carrying SIM card was disposed of by aides. When Clinton’s BlackBerry device would malfunction, her aides would help her get a new one.
The specialist then used a program known as BleachBit to delete an unknown number of emails, according to the report.
Hillary Clinton told State Department staff not to use personal email to conduct official business, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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The employees’ email account was hosted on the same private server which was used by Hilary Clinton when she was serving as the USA secretary of state.
