WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is looking into the security of devices on which Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email was stored when she was secretary of state, Clinton’s attorney said Wednesday.
“We are actively cooperating” with the investigation, attorney David Kendall said in a statement.
The Washington Post reported in Wednesday’s editions that the FBI has asked Kendall about the security of a thumb drive containing copies of Clinton’s work emails sent during her tenure as secretary of state, which is in his possession. The Post cited two anonymous government officials, who said that the FBI was not targeting Clinton.
On Wednesday, Kendall characterized the investigation as predictable, given that the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community alerted the Justice Department last month that information not marked classified — but which should have been — may have been included in email that went through Clinton’s home server. The referral to the Justice Department did not seek a criminal probe and did not specifically target Clinton.
“Quite predictably, after the ICIG made a referral to ensure that materials remain properly stored, the government is seeking assurance about the storage of those materials,” Kendal said in his statement.
Clinton’s emails have been under scrutiny since The Associated Press revealed in March that she used a private “homebrew” server traced to her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was the top U.S. diplomat. Government and congressional investigators have been trying to determine whether she sent or received classified information on unsecured email.
A spokesman for Clinton’s presidential campaign tweeted Tuesday that the Post story “doesn’t change anything … IG sent ask to DOJ to confirm emails are secure.”
“IG request was noncriminal & didnt accuse Clinton of wrongdoing,” spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted. “FBI is ‘not targeting her.'”
An FBI spokesman contacted Tuesday night by The Associated Press declined to comment, and Kendall did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked last week whether the department would be “open” to having the FBI examine the thumb drive. “We’ve made sure that the documents at her lawyers’ are in a secure setting, but I’m not going to speak to what the FBI should or shouldn’t do,” Toner responded.
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