Hillary Clinton violated government policy in her use of a personal email server, a federal judge said on Thursday.

“We wouldn’t be here today if the employee had followed government policy,” judge Emmet Sullivan said.

Hearing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, seeking access to the records of Clinton’s staff, Sullivan said that the former secretary of state had hindered State’s ability to provide records.



Sullivan ordered the department to ask the FBI for any emails relating to the lawsuit that have been recovered from Clinton’s server but are not in the department’s possession.

When a Justice Department lawyer raised concerns about the government’s right to search the private email of an official, Sullivan said: “There was a violation of government policy.”

“We’re not talking about a search of anyone’s random email,” he said, after Justice Department lawyers argued with the plaintiffs over how far the government could reach in records requests.

Clinton herself is not under investigation in the suit before Sullivan, a DC district judge who was appointed by Bill Clinton. It pertains to the records regarding Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin, who was for a time deputy chief of staff at the State Department.

Clinton has maintained that her use of a server was allowed, saying this week in Las Vegas: “what I did was legally permitted.”

Hillary Clinton defends herself against suggestions of misconduct during a press conference in Las Vegas - link to video Guardian

She and her campaign have characterized the controversy, which has raised concerns over possible security lapses and weaknesses with classified information, as a dispute between agencies over labeling. She has also defended her right to deem some emails personal, and delete them: “My personal emails are my personal business, right?”

Clinton also faces fresh concerns from congressional Democrats, as new polls suggest the inquiry is taking a toll on her presidential campaign.



While her campaign asserts that Clinton never sent or received material considered classified at the time, Democratic lawmakers said she has not adequately explained the complicated nature of the email inquiry – and they have panned some of her attempts to shrug off the probe with humor.

Clinton joked at a Democratic dinner in Iowa last week that she liked the social media platform Snapchat because the messages disappear by themselves. And in Nevada she shrugged off questions about her server being wiped clean: “Like a cloth or something?”

“I don’t think the campaign has handled it very well,” Florida senator Bill Nelson told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I think the advice to her of making a joke out of it – I think that was not good advice.”

Nelson said if Clinton had received information that should have been labelled classified or top secret, the person sending the email would bear the responsibility of making that clear on the email. “If she is receiving something on a private email account and it has no designation, then how would she know that it is classified?” he asked.

In Republican-leaning Kentucky, Democratic representative John Yarmuth warned in an interview with WHAS-TV in Louisville: “I still think there is a chance that this could upend her campaign.”

“I just never feel like I have a grasp of what the facts are,” Yarmuth said on Wednesday. “Clearly she has handled it poorly from the first day. And there’s the appearance of dishonesty, if it’s not dishonest.”

The new concerns follow Clinton’s decision to turn over her server to federal investigators who are trying to determine if the data on it was secure.

Clinton holds a wide but narrowing lead in the Democratic field against the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who has gained ground on Clinton in New Hampshire and Iowa. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has pitched himself as a fresh face and has tried to gain traction.

While Clinton holds significant advantages in money and support among Democrats, polls released on Thursday by Quinnipiac University in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania – three general election battleground states – found that only about one-third of respondents thought she was honest and trustworthy.

Other polls suggest public perceptions of her honesty have been declining as she has dealt with questions about her email use and potential mishandling of classified material. That has prompted Clinton’s campaign to defend her on cable television and distribute fact sheets to supporters about the inquiry.

“We understand there is confusion about the issue and are being more aggressive in making sure people understand two key facts,” said the Clinton campaign communications director, Jennifer Palmieri.

“First, that using personal email was allowed and in keeping with what her predecessors had done. Two, she always treated classified materials with great care, dealt with them in hard copy, not online, and never sent or received material considered classified at the time.”

Clinton’s campaign says she still leads when compared with Republican presidential candidates in hypothetical matchups. And her allies predict congressional Republicans will overplay their hand when Clinton testifies in October before a GOP-led panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

“I’ve been around this block many times with supposed Clinton scandals. It just won’t work,” said David Brock, a Clinton loyalist and the founder of the Democratic Super Pac American Bridge.

Clinton told reporters in Nevada that they were the only ones bringing up the subject.

And others are hearing about it. In Columbia, South Carolina, on Wednesday, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was asked by a supporter how the campaign would defend Clinton against criticism. He said it would deploy people to speak up on her behalf and fight what he sees as political disinformation about the email controversy.

“We need to defend her, and we are going to do that,” Podesta said.

Watching from the sidelines is Vice-President Joe Biden, who is considering entering the Democratic primaries. Biden has struggled in two previous presidential bids, but his entry could offer Democrats another alternative.

While those in the Democratic field have largely steered clear of the email review, O’Malley said on Wednesday in Las Vegas that Clinton’s email practices had become a “huge distraction” from what Democrats should be talking about and said it showed the need for more televised debates.

“Until we do, our party’s label is going to be the latest news du jour about emails and email servers and what Secretary Clinton knew and when she knew it,” O’Malley said.

Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama White House adviser, said the focus on her emails “has no doubt put some downward pressure on some of Clinton’s attributes.” But the real challenge, he said, “is that the email issue is blocking out a lot of the campaign’s ability to communicate on topics that matter more to voters.”

He suggested Clinton would benefit once the election becomes a choice between a single Republican candidate and her.

“The question shouldn’t be, do you trust Hillary Clinton,” Pfeiffer said. “It needs to be, do you trust Hillary Clinton more than Marco Rubio or Donald Trump on the economy, immigration” and more.



The Associated Press contributed to this report