Hillary Clinton Stands By Claim She Did Not 'Send or Receive' Information Marked Classified, Despite FBI Findings
“I did not send or receive any material marked classified," she told David Muir.
— -- Hillary Clinton today again stood by her belief that she did not send or receive classified information while she was secretary of state, despite an FBI investigation that concluded otherwise.
“I stand by what I said,” the presumptive Democratic nominee told ABC News’ David Muir today when asked about her use of a personal email server during her tenure at the State Department. “I did not send or receive any material marked classified, and I am very grateful for the hard work and professionalism of the FBI and the Department of Justice in resolving this matter.”
Last week, FBI Director James Comey said that 110 emails in 52 email chains were determined to contain some form of classified information at the time they were sent. He went on to specify that Clinton was on seven of those chains that were classified as top secret. (During a hearing before Congress this week, however, Comey clarified that three of those emails were not properly marked and therefore could have been missed by Clinton.)
The FBI investigation concluded that Clinton should not be charged criminally for her actions, but that she was “extremely careless” nonetheless.
Clinton brushed off this characterization today, arguing the State Department may have marked material classified that shouldn’t have been marked as such.
“I think Director Comey clarified that and certainly the State Department did. In fact, the State Department called the presence of a little ‘C’ in the documents in question ‘human error,’ that they should not have been there. They were not meant to classify something that ordinarily was not classified,” she said in the interview with Muir.
“I have said, and I repeat, that it was a mistake to use personal email,” she added. “I regret that but I am very glad that this is behind us now and we are moving forward.”