State Department, intelligence watchdogs reportedly call for criminal probe of Clinton emails

The inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence community reportedly have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information by using a personal e-mail account while secretary of state.
According to The New York Times, an initial joint memorandum dated June 29 and sent to State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy said that a review of Clinton's e-mail archive contained "hundreds of potentially classified emails".
Clinton, who served as secretary of state during President Barack Obama's first term, has repeatedly denied sending or receiving any classified information on her personal account. However, the inspectors general wrote in a second memorandum last week that at least one of Clinton's emails that had been made public by the State Department contained sensitive information.
Clinton presidential campaign spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement early Friday denying that Clinton had handled classified materials inappropriately.
"As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed classified by the [Obama] administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted," Merrill said.
The Times reported that senior Justice Department officials had not said whether they will open an investigation.

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The existence of Clinton's private e-mail account was first revealed in March of this year. Subsequent reports revealed that the account was run through a personal so-called "homebrew" server based at her New York home. The arrangement has raised questions about Clinton's adherence to federal open records laws and whether she used the account to shield herself from information requests by journalists and government transparency groups.
Clinton has maintained that she turned over all relevant federal records before deleting her emails off her sever. Amid heavy public criticism, she later asked the State Department to release 55,000 pages of emails she had turned over to them. An initial batch of 3,000 pages was made public June 30.
The next day, State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed to Fox News that the department had retroactively deemed about 25 of the Clinton emails to be classified. The Times reports that in May, the State Department also acceded to a request by the FBI to retroactively classify a section of emails related to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The Department's decisions don't mean Clinton knowingly sent classified information during her tenure as America's top diplomat.
The New York Times reports that the inspectors general also criticized the State Department for over-reliance on former Foreign Service officers to determine which information should be classified and failure to consult with the intelligence community on such matters.