The results of the FBI investigation into potential security breaches associated with Clinton's private email server have not been revealed yet.
However, the independent State Department Inspector General report was just released. It concludes that Clinton failed to follow the rules or inform key department staff regarding her use of a private email server, according to a copy of the report obtained by CNN today.
The report, which was provided to lawmakers, states, "At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act."
The report examined record keeping laws, policies and practices at the State Department from 1997 to present.
In producing the report, the Inspector General's office interviewed former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice. Clinton and several of her staff members during her tenure declined to be interviewed, the report said.
The report draws attention to two staff members in the Office of Information Resources Management, who back in 2010 "discussed their concerns about Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email account in separate meetings with the then-Director" of their office.
The report says, "According to the staff member, the Director stated that the Secretary's personal system had been reviewed and approved by Department legal staff and that the matter was not to be discussed any further." The same director reportedly "instructed the staff never to speak of the Secretary's personal email system again."
But the report notes that interviews with officials from the Under Secretary for Management and the Office of the Legal Adviser found "no knowledge of approval or review by other Department staff" of the server. Clinton has long maintained that she had permission to use personal email.
Clinton told CNN's Brianna Keilar in July that "the truth is everything I did was permitted and I went above and beyond what anybody could have expected in making sure that if the State Department didn't capture something, I made a real effort to get it to them."
But the report says that the Inspector General's office "found no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server."
In a statement following the report's release, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, wrote that "While political opponents of Hillary Clinton are sure to misrepresent this report for their own partisan purposes, in reality, the Inspector General documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other Secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email."
But while the report acknowledges personal email use by previous secretaries, it also notes that the rules for preserving work emails sent from a personal email account were updated in 2009, the year Clinton took office.
Full story:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/s...email-use/
