Clinton Turns Over Private Email Server as Investigation Intensifies

In a dramatic turn to a widening scandal, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton gave in to mounting pressure to release her private stash of State Department emails and, a spokesman said Tuesday, has turned over her home Internet server to Justice Department investigators.

It was a turnabout for the former secretary of state, and an apparent attempt to quell a government probe into whether she discussed classified matters over her personal email account — one that critics say she used to evade legal requirements to retain her State Department communications and records. The ongoing dispute has fueled growing doubts about her trustworthiness that have overshadowed her campaign and dragged her poll numbers lower.

Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton’s presidential campaign, told CNN that the personal Internet server she used while heading the State Department and a thumb drive containing copies of her emails had been turned over to the Justice Department. Merrill said the thumb drive was also earlier provided to the State Department, which is conducting its own review of the documents.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday when Clinton’s lawyers gave the server and thumb drive to the Justice Department. Calls and messages to spokespeople at the FBI and the Justice Department’s criminal division were not immediately returned Tuesday evening. The Washington Post reported last week that the intelligence community’s inspector general referred the issue to the Justice Department in July.

“She pledged to cooperate with the government’s security inquiry, and if there are more questions, we will continue to address them,” Merrill told CNN on Tuesday.

Clinton served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Last March, she admitted to using a private server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., instead of relying on the official State Department email system. She said the setup was designed so she could avoid carrying multiple phones and messaging devices, a claim immediately questioned by Republican lawmakers who accused her of trying to improperly shield her communications.

At that time, Clinton also said that none of the emails routed through that server contained classified information and that she would not turn over the server to an independent investigator to examine all of the correspondence.

Since then, the State Department has publicly released about 4,600 pages of emails of the estimated 55,000 documents under review. Emails released two weeks ago, the most recent set made public, showed that some sensitive security information was sent through Clinton’s private email account. It has also emerged that Huma Abedin, a senior Clinton aide during her tenure at the State Department and now a top advisor to her campaign, also maintained a private account on the Clinton server.

State Department spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday said that parts of at least two emails that were forwarded to Clinton between 2009 and 2011 were recently identified by the intelligence community’s inspector general as containing top-secret information. Kirby said the emails, which were circulated on unclassified computer systems, were not marked as classified at the time they were sent to Clinton.

“These emails have not been released to the public,” Kirby said. He said the State Department is “taking steps to ensure the information is protected and stored appropriately” as officials with the office of National Intelligence Director James Clapper work to decide whether the material in the documents is, in fact, classified.

Republicans who long have sought to pin down Clinton on her role in the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, have seized on the personal emails as proof that she has tried to hide evidence about the deadly assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. A Republican-controlled House committee cleared the Obama administration — including Clinton — of wrongdoing in the attack.

House Speaker John Boehner said “it’s about time” that Clinton handed over the email server to authorities.

“Her mishandling of classified information must be fully investigated,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement Tuesday night.

Clinton has long been seen as a virtual lock to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but a steady drumbeat of polls shows that doubts about her candor have led to her support dropping among Americans. A CBS News poll released last week found that more registered voters now believe she is not honest or trustworthy than had when asked similar questions in a March survey. Clinton’s falling poll numbers, paired with the lingering doubts about the emails, have prompted renewed speculation that Vice President Joe Biden might enter the race.

Foreign Policy senior reporter John Hudson contributed to this report.

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