No Explicit Permission to Use Email Private Server: Clinton to FBI

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Friday the campaign was pleased the FBI had released the documents. (Photo: Reuters)

Hillary Clinton told the FBI she relied on her staff not to send emails containing classified information to the private email server she used as secretary of state.

The revelation came Friday as the FBI, in a rare step, published scores of pages summarizing interviews with Clinton and her top aides from the recently closed criminal investigation into her use of a private email server from her New York, home.

The Democratic presidential nominee told the FBI she never sought or asked permission to use a private server or email address during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013. A prior review by the State Department’s internal watchdog concluded the practice violated several policies for the safekeeping and preservation of federal records.

The latest developments highlight competing liabilities for Clinton. Either she made a conscious effort to prevent a full public accounting of her tenure at State or she was nonchalant about decisions with national security consequences and risks.

The first scenario plays into Republican arguments and voter concerns about her trustworthiness and transparency, while the second casts doubt on her pitch as a hyper-competent, detail-driven executive.  

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Friday the campaign was pleased the FBI had released the documents.

While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case.

Fallon

Russia President Vladimir Putin. (Photo: AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia wasn’t involved in the hacking of emails of the US Democratic Party, but thinks the release of the information is beneficial.

Some American officials have claimed that Russian military intelligence was behind the hacking, which provoked a political scandal in the US by revealing apparent prejudice in the Democratic National Committee against Hillary Clinton’s challenger for the presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders.

“At the state level, we certainly weren’t involved in this,” Putin said in an interview released by the Kremlin.

What’s important is that there was material that was released to the public.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump countered that Clinton’s “answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief.”

After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution.

Clinton has repeatedly said her use of private email was allowed. But over a 3½-hour interview in July, she told investigators she “did not explicitly request permission to use a private server or email address,” the FBI wrote.

Previous government reviews of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton returned to the State Department found that about 110 contained classified information.

Friday’s release of internal investigative documents by the FBI was a highly unusual step, but one that reflects an extraordinary public interest in the investigation into Clinton’s server.