WASHINGTON (AP) – The State Department is reopening an internal investigation of possible mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton and top aides.
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The probe was suspended in April in order to not interfere with the FBI investigation, but that suspension was lifted after the FBI declined to pursue criminal charges on Wednesday. The State Department will decide if employees managing Clinton’s emails should be subject to disciplinary action, which could mean getting reprimands or loss of security clearance.
The State Department says it won’t identify former officials that still hold security clearances.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan also asked James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, to revoke Clinton’s security clearances.
Mr Kirby would not identify the top aides under investigation, but the AP said the ones most likely to face scrutiny are Jake Sullivan, Cheryl Mills, and Huma Abedin. Kirby elaborated further on the matter by stating that the State Department’s internal “process for reviewing potential cases of mishandling of information does not apply exclusively to current employees”.
FBI Director James Comey, who answered questions related to the investigation in Congress Thursday, made the recommendation to Lynch that Clinton face no charges.
On Thursday, the State Department said transparency was an overarching goal in investigating Clinton’s use of a private server. “Access to classified information is a serious responsibility; at a minimum, they should not be trusted to handle this sensitive national security information in the future”.
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The State Department’s inspector general in May blasted Clinton’s email use, saying that she failed to follow the rules or inform key department staff regarding her use of a private email server. As far as the meeting with Clinton, she said in hindsight that she would not do it again. They included eight email chains with top secret information, the highest classification, along with 36 containing secret information and eight with confidential information. But I do not see evidence that is sufficient to establish that Secretary Clinton or those with whom she was corresponding both talked about classified information on email and knew when they were doing it that it was against the law.
