In a new cause for concern to Hillary Clinton barely two months before the presidential election, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has released documents relating to its year-long probe into her emails saga, shedding more light on the “extreme carelessness” of Clinton and her aides over handling classified information.
Although the Department of Justice decided against any prosecution after FBI’s conclusion in July that there was no evidence of Clinton and her aides intentionally mishandling classified information, Friday’s release of 58 pages of investigation documents has provided the Republicans further ammunition for their attacks on her honesty and judgement.
Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump lost little time to slam her, saying in a statement, “I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution.”
The FBI, which probed Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenures as Secretary of State, revealed in the released documents that on as many as 39 occasions during its questioning, she said she did not “recall” or remember key elements of the training or classified information process.
The agency also disclosed that while it wanted 13 devices from which Clinton accessed her email, the law firm representing her said it could not produce any. It further revealed that one Clinton aide recalled two instances where he destroyed her old mobile devices “by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer”.
“Investigative limitations, including the FBI’s inability to obtain all mobile devices and various computer components associated with Clinton’s personal e-mail systems, prevented the FBI from conclusively determining whether the classified information transmitted and stored on Clinton’s personal server systems was compromised via cyber intrusion or other means”.
Although Clinton had in March 2015 said that she never carried more than one device and used her mobile phone for both official work and personal emails, investigations determined that she used in succession 11 e-mail capable BlackBerry devices, eight of which she used during her tenure.
Specifically on the question whether Clinton’s private server could have been hacked, the FBI documents noted that while this possibility could not be ruled out conclusively, there was no evidence that the system was actually hacked.
Clinton, who was quizzed on discussing the Obama administration’s controversial drone program in emails on her server, said she felt the conversation was “part of the routine deliberation process” and “did not give her cause for concern” regarding classification.
The documents quote Clinton as telling FBI agents that she did not know much about how the government classified information, admitting she did not pay attention to the difference between levels of classification, such as “top secret” and “secret”. She also did not known the use of letter ‘C’ referred to confidential information.
While the Republicans were up in arms with the release of the documents, the Clinton campaign took the official stand that it was “pleased” with the release saying it had requested for the same. “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,” a campaign official said.
The release of the FBI papers comes at a time when the presidential race appears to be tightening with new polls pointing to a reduced lead for Clinton when compared to recent weeks. Although she still leads over Trump, a CNN Poll of Polls said Clinton’s lead has been cut in half in the last one month. The RealClearPolitics average of polls also showed her lead down from over 8 per cent a month to ago to 4.1 per cent now. But the good news for her is that she maintains her lead in a number of battleground States.