Hillary Clinton’s explanation of her unusual email arrangement has evolved from a staunch defense of its legality to reluctant compliance with an FBI investigation in just a matter of months.
During a press conference delivered just days after news of her private email server broke, Clinton asserted “there is no classified material” among her emails.
Clinton amended the statement weeks later on the campaign trail, assuring reporters the emails hosted on her server were not classified at the time they were sent.
The former secretary of state was forced to hedge her original defense after the State Department retroactively classified an email in May before publishing a batch of 296 Benghazi-related records.
Inspectors general from both the State Department and the intelligence community later raised concerns that hundreds of emails on the server could require classification.
An inspector general update provided to Congress Tuesday indicated at least two of the emails “contained classified State Department information when originated.”
Those emails are still under review by intelligence officials to determine how highly they should be classified.
The update, signed by Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough, directly contradicts Clinton’s claim that no intelligence on her server was classified when it was sent or received.
Some of the emails hosted on her personal network were classified as “top secret,” the highest level of sensitivity in government.
Clinton also initially insisted her personal server “will remain private” because it contained personal communications between herself and family members.
Her attorney, David Kendall, similarly insisted “there are no [email protected] e-mails from Secretary of State Clinton’s tenure on the server for any review, even if such a review were appropriate or legally authorized,” dismissing congressional calls for a third-party examination of the server.
But after the pair of inspectors general raised concerns about the mishandling of classified information, the Department of Justice opened an inquiry into whether a crime was committed.
The FBI dug into Clinton’s email arrangement, visiting both the company that managed the server and the law office where Kendall held copies of Clinton’s work-related emails.
Although Kendall has a security clearance, critics questioned why he was allowed to keep a thumb drive containing records now known to be classified when interested government parties — such as the intelligence community inspector general — were denied access to the same documents.
The revelation Tuesday evening that Clinton relinquished both the server and the thumb drive to the Justice Department suggested investigators forced her to turn over the equipment in light of new information.
Clinton’s team quickly shifted gears from downplaying the possibility that the FBI had grounds to seize her server to highlighting Clinton’s “cooperation” with a “security inquiry.”
Campaign aides had repeatedly pushed back on the characterization of the FBI’s probe as “criminal” despite the fact that all investigations conducted by the FBI are criminal in nature.
