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“We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account,” Comey said. Comey said while they did not find “direct evidence” that her personal email domain was “hacked successfully,” it’s unlikely they would see direct evidence of it.
“With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal email domain in its various configurations since 2009 was hacked successfully, but given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess we will be unlikely to see such direct evidence,” Comey said.
“We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account,” said Comey. “We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent,” he added.
“She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries,” he said. “Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account,” Comey concluded.
FBI Director: 'It Is Possible Hostile Actors Gained Access to Secretary Clinton's Personal Email Account'
“Seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program at the time they were sent and received. Those chains involve Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails about those same matters,” Comey said.
Comey said while there was no “clear evidence” that “Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” evidence suggests that they were “extremely careless” in handling very sensitive, highly classified information. “For example,” he said, “seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the top secret special access program at the time they were sent and received. Those chains involve Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails about those same matters.
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Comey added. “In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as secret by the U.S. intelligence community at the time it was discussed on email. That is excluding any later upclassified emails,” Comey said, referring to emails that were later deemed classified after they were sent or received.
“None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning, because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail,” he said.
FBI Director: ‘7 Email Chains Concern Matters That Were Classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program’
A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday that a lower court judge erred when he threw out the cases as moot after the State Department received tens of thousands of emails from Clinton and more from the FBI following the criminal investigation it conducted. Watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Cause of Action filed separate suits in 2015, asking that Secretary of State John Kerry and the head of the National Archives, Archivist David Ferriero, be required to refer the Clinton email issue to the Justice Department to consider filing a civil suit to get missing federal records back.
D.C. Circuit Judge Stephen Williams said State's requests to Clinton and the FBI for copies of Clinton's emails were not necessarily enough to fulfill State's obligation to pursue any missing messages. "Even though those efforts bore some fruit, the Department has not explained why shaking the tree harder — e.g., by following the statutory mandate to seek action by the Attorney General — might not bear more still. It is therefore abundantly clear that, in terms of assuring government recovery of emails, appellants have not 'been given everything [they] asked for,'" Williams wrote in the court's opinion, joined by Judges Brett Kavanaugh and Robert Wilkins. "Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot."
Clinton turned over about 54,000 pages of messages at State's request in December 2014. She also instructed her aides to erase a similar quantity of emails her lawyers determined were entirely personal. In August 2015, her attorneys gave thumb drives containing copies of the work-related messages to the Justice Department. Clinton attorney David Kendall did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Clinton and her attorneys previously have said she has no more messages to turn over, whether suits are filed or not. A spokesman for the Justice Department, which is representing State and the National Archives in the litigation, also declined to comment on the ruling.
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The ruling from Judge Stephen Williams, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, revives one of a number of legal challenges involving Clinton's handling of government emails when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, used a private email server housed at her New York home to handle State Department emails. She handed over 55,000 emails to U.S. officials probing that system, but did not release about 30,000 she said were personal and not work related. The email case shadowed Clinton's loss to Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump, who had repeatedly said during the bruising campaign that if elected he would prosecute Clinton, said after the election he had no interest in pursuing investigations into Clinton's email use. While the State Department and National Archives took steps to recover the emails from Clinton's tenure, they did not ask the U.S. attorney general to take enforcement action. Two conservative groups filed lawsuits to force their hand.
A district judge in January ruled the suits brought by Judicial Watch and Cause of Action moot, saying State and the National Archives made a "sustained effort" to recover and preserve Clinton's records. But Williams said the two agencies should have done more, according to the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Since the agencies neither asked the attorney general for help nor showed such enforcement action could not uncover new emails, the case was not moot. "The Department has not explained why shaking the tree harder - e.g., by following the statutory mandate to seek action by the Attorney General - might not bear more still," Williams wrote. "Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot." The State Department does not comment on pending litigation, a spokesperson said.
Williams noted that Clinton used two nongovernmental email accounts at State and continued using the Blackberry account she had while a U.S. senator during her first weeks as the nation's U.S. diplomat. She only switched to the email account hosted on her private server in March 2009, the ruling said. "Because the complaints sought recovery of emails from all of the former Secretary’s accounts, the FBI's recovery of a server that hosted only one account does not moot the suits, the judge wrote.
U.S. appeals court revives Clinton email suit
