Biggest Takeaways From FBI’s Document Release On Hillary Clinton Email Investigation

The FBI made public a summary of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and a summary of a three-hour long interview it conducted with the Democratic presidential nominee.

While it’s unlikely anything released Friday will sink her presidential campaign, there was fodder for her opponent, from questions about her health to how she handled classified information. Overall, the documents open a window into Clinton’s handling of the server and the information on it and provided some previously unknown details about the FBI’s investigation into it.

Patch scoured through the 58 pages of documents and picked out the most important parts of the release that had been unknown.

1. She trusted others to know what they were doing when it comes to classified material.

The FBI said Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined and said there was a process in place for that at the State Department before she arrived.

"She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address,” the FBI wrote.

2. (C) may have been for cookies for all she knew.

Many of the classified emails on the server were incorrectly identified as such. They only contained a (C) marking before certain paragraphs.

"When asked what the parenthetical 'C' meant before a paragraph,” the report said, “Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.”

3. She used a lot of devices.

Thirteen phones and five iPads, to be exact.

The FBI was not able to look through each individual device, though, because old ones had not been preserved. In fact, one former aide to President Bill Clinton said that on two occasions he destroyed devices of hers by breaking them in half or using a hammer.

4. Only one other person had a clintonemail.com email address.

That would be Huma Abedin, Clinton’s long-time friend and aide. Clinton “did not recall any other individual being offered an account on clintonemail.com,” according to the FBI.

5. She talked about drones on her server.

Clinton discussed openly on her server the State Department's targets for potential drone strikes and told the FBI she didn't think those conversations should be classified.

"Clinton stated deliberation over a future drone strike did not give her cause for concern regarding classification," the FBI wrote.

6. There were concerns about hacking…

And plenty of evidence that hostile actors tried to get into the server and her devices.

The FBI also found that people whom Clinton sent emails to had also been hacked, so some of Clinton’s emails could have been read by unauthorized people.

7. ...and phishing...

Clinton received one email that claimed to have been sent from a state official that contained a malicious link.
“Is this really from you?” Clinton wrote. “I was worried about opening it.”

One associate sent Abedin an email with a link to a porn site. Another link on the server, if opened, would have sent information to three computers, including one in Russia.

8. ...but no evidence the server was compromised.

Remember Guccifer, the Russian hacker who told Fox News he got into Clinton’s server? He told the FBI that was a lie.

At the same time, it couldn’t conclude the server wasn’t hacked.

“Investigative limitations, including the FBI’s inability to obtain all mobile devices and various computer components associated with Clinton’s personal email systems, prevented the FBI from conclusively determining whether the classified information … was compromised via cyber intrusions or other means,” the FBI wrote.

9. There were a lot of things Clinton could not recall.

More than three dozen times, FBI agents noted that she could not recall something during its interview with her, including a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike and receiving any email that she didn’t think belonged on an unclassified email system.

10. Donald Trump has tried to make an issue of her medical condition. He might find some support — not a lot, but some — in the FBI summary of its interview with Clinton. The concussion and blood clot, though, have been known for some time.

“In December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot,” the report said. “Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received.”

11. “Convenience” was important to her.

Twice during the interview with the FBI, she talked about convenience being a motivation for maintaining the server. She talked about wanting a secure Blackberry because “she was aware President Obama had one and it seemed convenient.”

The second time was in discussing why she had her email hooked up to the server that had been set up for her husband. “It was a matter of convenience to move onto a system maintained by her husband’s staff,” the FBI wrote.

12. She asked Gen. Colin Powell for advice.

On Jan. 23, 2009, as she was settling into her job, Clinton wrote to Gen. Colin Powell — one of her predecessors — to ask about his use of a Blackberry. He wrote back with a warning: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”

She told the FBI she took that to mean any work-related communication would be government records.

13. She should have known better.

The FBI revisited a damaging piece of information from the original State Department Inspector General investigation — that there was “no evidence” that she sought approval to conduct State Department business “on her personal email or private server despite her obligation to do so.”

The FBI says she “told the FBI that she did not explicitly request permission.”

14. Her friend Sid Blumenthal had a lot to say

Blumenthal — it was the actual hacking of his email that led to the disclosure that she had a private email — is described as a “former political aide to President Clinton and an informal political advisor to Clinton during her tenure at State.”

Investigators found at least 179 emails he sent directly to her during that time. The FBI said Clinton described him as “a prodigious writer whose information was sometimes accurate and sometimes not.”

15. The FBI found a lot of emails that should have been turned over.

The bureau reviewed 17,448 emails that were not initially turned over by Clinton and her team of attorneys. That includes emails of both a personal and work-related nature, though the FBI did not say how many fell into each category.

16. She had three office phones and a fax machine

She described her office on the seventh floor of State Department headquarters for the FBI agents: one black phone capable of unsecure and secure communication, one yellow phone for secure communication and one white phone capable of direct calls to certain government officials.

She did not have a computer terminal of any kind. She did not have a fax machine.

She had special secure offices, though, in her homes in DC and Chappaqua. Those were a little more high-tech. They each had a fax machine.

Patch's Marc Torrence contributed reporting. Image via Rick Uldricks, Patch Staff.