Government Investigation Into Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Finds No ‘Deliberate Mishandling’ Of Info
The State Department concluded its probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails after a multi-year investigation and they determined that there was no “deliberate mishandling of classified information.” According to The Washington Post, the State Department concluded that there was no intentional misuse of Clinton’s private computer server, shutting down a controversial chapter in the former Secretary of State’s public service.
Donald Trump and other critics of Clinton pointed to the handling of the emails as evidence that the 2016 Democratic candidate for president was engaged in dishonest and harmful behavior. Trump awarded her with the moniker “Crooked Hillary” during the campaign. Clinton cited the controversy over the matter, amplified by then-FBI Director James Comey, as a major reason that she lost the race.
“Then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the matter enraged Democrats. In July 2016, Comey took the extraordinary step of announcing there would be no charges filed against Clinton in the email probe, but accused her of being ‘extremely careless’ in a news conference,” the Post reports.
The government agency submitted its final report to Congress, saying that while there was no deliberate misbehavior, 38 people were found to have violated security protocol, though none of those instances involved classified information. There were also 497 violations where no one individual was found to be at fault. Over 33,000 emails were reviewed including messages up to 9 years old. Dozens of former State Department employees were interviewed recently as part of the investigation process.
The report didn’t indicate if there will be any sanctions on the unidentified individuals who were found to have violated security protocol.
The report concluded that “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
While there wasn’t any intentional campaign to obfuscate, the report also found that there were “instances of classified information being inappropriately” transmitted. The investigators concluded that in most of those instances, the employees “were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them.”
The conclusion is an anti-climactic closure to an issue that Trump still focuses on even as investigations into this own communications heat up. For instance, it was recently revealed during the House impeachment inquiry that Trump’s associates used private phones and texting apps to send messages back and forth about their activity regarding the efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, Clinton has been in the news recently for suggesting that 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is being groomed by Russia for a third-party run. She has faced intense criticism after claiming that the Hawaii congressperson was repeating Russian talking points and that Russian bots on social media had been promoting Gabbard recently.
Jill Stein: "It's really outrageous that Hillary Clinton is trying to promote this crazy idea. You know you can't just slander people. You have to present some basis in fact." pic.twitter.com/888TEH8nlr
— The Hill (@thehill) October 19, 2019
