Clinton to Turn Private Email Server Over to Justice Department
Hillary Clinton relented Tuesday to months of demands that she relinquish the personal email server she used while Secretary of State, directing the device be given to the Justice Department.
Clinton’s use of her private email account linked to a server in her home in a New York City suburb for her work as America’s top diplomat came to light in March and drew fire from political opponents who accused her of sidestepping transparency and record-keeping laws.
Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said she has “pledged to cooperate with the government’s security inquiry, and if there are more questions, we will continue to address them.”
Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, turned over the emails after the FBI determined that he could not remain in possession of the classified information, an official who had been briefed on the matter told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to be quoted publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The State Department previously had said it was comfortable with Kendall keeping the emails at his Washington law office.
It’s not clear if the server will yield any information — Clinton’s attorney said in March that no emails from the main personal address she used while secretary of state still “reside on the server or on back-up systems associated with the server.”
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News of Clinton turning over her server came as Sen. Charles Grassley said two of the emails, which traversed Clinton’s insecure home email server, were deemed “Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information,” which is among the government’s highest classifications.
Grassley said the inspector general of the intelligence community had reported the new details about the higher classification to Congress on Tuesday.
Grassley said the new information from the inspector general “makes it even more important that the FBI and the State Department secure these documents.”
Those two emails were among four that had previously been determined by the inspector general of the intelligence community to have been classified at the time they were sent. The State Department disputes that the emails were classified at the time.