Investigation requested at Justice Department over Democratic presidential hopeful’s use of private account while secretary of state, says New York Times

Hillary Clinton may face a criminal investigation by the Justice Department over her use of a private email address while she was secretary of state, according to a report.



The New York Times said late on Thursday that two inspectors general had asked for the investigation. Revelations that the Democratic presidential hopeful used a private email account on a server hosted in her home in Chappaqua, New York, have led to months of scrutiny both in the media and by a congressional committee tasked with investigating the 11 September 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

While Clinton has long maintained that she did nothing wrong in eschewing State Department email in favor of her own personal address hdr22@clintonemail.com, political opponents have alleged that this account was used to shield her from scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as by Congress. In a March press conference at the United Nations, Clinton insisted she only used the address for “convenience” so she wouldn’t have to carry two phones.

Clinton subsequently turned over 55,000 pages of emails for release, comprising roughly 30,000 individual messages to the State Department, but deleted 32,000 more emails from her server, stating that they were personal in nature. The former secretary of state also maintained no email to or from her personal account contained classified information. According to the New York Times, government inspectors general identified hundreds of emails that potentially contained classified messages.

The decision on whether to move forward with an investigation lies with the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and carries risks for the Obama administration. Should an investigation go ahead it might turn up even more embarrassing information about Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. However, should the Justice Department decide not to investigate it could lead to accusations of a politically motivated cover-up in an election year.

Comment has been sought by the Guardian from the Clinton campaign.

Representative Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee gave a statement to the Guardian in which he said: “I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday, and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton’s email usage.”

The Maryland Democrat added: “Instead, he told me the Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that they identified classified information in a few emails that were part of the FOIA review, and that none of those emails had been previously marked as classified.”

Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Benghazi committee struck a different note in a statement. “Committee Members on both sides have been aware of concerns about classified emails within the self-selected records turned over by Secretary Clinton. The Committee appreciates that Inspectors General appointed by President Obama have confirmed this is a serious and nonpartisan national security matter by any objective measure.” In the South Carolina Republican’s opinion, “these issues should be evaluated under the same strict standards that would apply to anyone found to be in possession of classified information outside of an approved system.”