The State Department Inspector General released a new report Wednesday detailing how former Secretary Hillary Clinton violated the Federal Records Act by deleting thousands of emails, stored on her private server, that she deemed personal before turning remaining emails over the the Department for review and preservation. Details from POLITICO:
The State Department inspector general concluded that Hillary Clinton did not comply with the agency’s policies on records, according to a report released to lawmakers on Wednesday that also revealed that Clinton and her top aides chose not to cooperate with the review.
While the report concludes that the agency suffers from "longstanding, systemic weaknesses" with records that "go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State,” it specifically dings Clinton for her exclusive use of private email.
“Therefore, Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary,” the report 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."
Clinton maintains that she did nothing wrong.
This report comes as the FBI is reportedly wrapping up its criminal investigation of Clinton, which is centered around her mishandling and storing of top secret, classified information on her personal, unsecured email server.
"Long-standing weaknesses with the preservation of federal email records clearly exist within the Office of the Secretary of State. Over time, those weaknesses may have been exploited by Department officials for self-serving purposes," Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in response to the report. "The State Department should immediately undertake the IG's recommendations to ensure both proper compliance with the Federal Records Act and adoption of a far more robust cybersecurity protocol."
This post has been updated with additional information.
