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New York Times alters Clinton email story

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive report about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.

As of early Friday morning, the Times article contained no update, notification, clarification or correction regarding the changes made to the article.

One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them,” Schmidt said.

Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, said in an email that Clinton always followed “appropriate practices.”

“Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials. As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted,” Merrill said.

The inspectors general request comes after their assessment that Clinton’s private email account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The Times' report notes that it is not clear whether the contents of the emails were marked as classified by the State Department when then-Secratry of State Clinton sent or received them.

Clinton's use of a private email account at the State Department has been a subject of intense scrutiny by both the media and Republican adversaries for months. No news outlet has been more aggressive in its coverage of that issue than the Times.

The Times' report also includes the following error: It states that a hearing in Washington about the State Department's refusal to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests had taken place on Monday. That hearing took place last week.

UPDATE (2:12 p.m.): The Times issued the following correction on Friday:

"An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, using information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton."

UPDATE (3:36 p.m.): Jennifer Werner, a Democratic spokesperson for the Select Committee on Benghazi, told the On Media blog that the State Inspector General "did not ask for any kind of investigation, criminal or otherwise." Werner said the referral "went from the Intelligence Community IG to the FBI."

For that reason, Werner said the Times was wrong to report that two inspectors general had asked the Justice Department to open an investigation.

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.

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