FBI publishes notes on Clinton’s use of private email

The FBI on Friday poured fresh fuel on the fire sparked by Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, releasing heavily redacted notes on its probe which White House rival Donald Trump seized on to attack her fitness for office.

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

The FBI, responding to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, released a summary of Clinton’s July 2 interview with the FBI, along with other documents related to the case.

Although one email chain contained information that is now classified, the other two chains referenced in the Federal Bureau of Investigation documents are now unclassified. Still, the report added fuel to the criticisms of Clinton and the narrative that her team acted “extremely careless”, as Comey said. “She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address”. During her interview, Clinton was shown some of those emails, but typically did not recall the details.

Let alone, the investigation’s report pointed out Clinton expressed no formal understanding of the use of “C” as an acronym to signify “Classified”. They said no one at the State Department raised concerns during her tenure, and that Clinton said everyone with whom she exchanged emails knew she was using a private email address.

“Hillary Clinton’s private email server was a reckless attempt to avoid accountability”, Matt Moore told The Associated Press on Friday.

“Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought she should not be on an unclassified system”, the report read.

“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 said. Mrs Clinton said she did not pay attention to the classified level “and took all classified information seriously”, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation notes.

In regards to an email with classification markings, Clinton said she did not know what they meant and speculated it indicated paragraph markings. Democrats have said making the documents available at all – especially the summaries of witness statements – sets a bad precedent and might discourage future witnesses from sitting for voluntary interviews with agents. The government forbids handling such information outside secure channels. “After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution”.

“Clinton thought a “nonpaper” was a way to convey the unofficial stance of the U.S. government to a foreign government and believed this practice went back ‘200 years, ‘” she said, according to interview notes.

People on both sides of the political aisle have criticized Comey for his blunt assessment of Clinton’s conduct and unusual release of materials to Congress. Republicans have said the bureau made inspection of them unnecessarily hard by inappropriately mingling classified documents with non-classified ones.