FBI Releases Documents from Hillary Clinton Email Investigation

(CN) — Redacted notes released by the FBI on Friday show that Hillary Clinton did not specifically ask for permission to use a private email server, trusted staffers' judgment about emails they sent her, and was unclear about a classification marking on a confidential message.

FBI Director James Comey said in July that Clinton should not face criminal charges for her email practices as secretary of state, but called her habits and those of her staff "extremely careless."

The documents released Friday include details about her private email server, in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

Notes about a July 2 interview with Clinton reveal that "she did not explicitly request permission to use a private server or email address," and no one in the State Department raised concerns about her private email server.

"Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system," the notes state. "She relied on State [Department] officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitive of the information she received at her email address."

Parts of the notes referring to specific emails are heavily redacted.

The Democratic presidential nominee told investigators that she did not recall getting guidance from the State Department about email policies that were outlined in a foreign affairs manual.

"Clinton advised everyone at State knew she had a private email address because it was displayed to anyone with whom she exchanged emails," the notes state.

At least 100 State Department employees had Clinton's email address, she told the FBI.

"Clinton's practice was to email State staff at their state.gov accounts, but would sometimes send email to a staff member's personal account if state.gov was down," the agency's notes say.

After reviewing an April 9, 2012 email, Clinton told investigators that she did not know what a parenthetical "C" meant before a paragraph in the email. That email had been marked "confidential," the lowest level of classification.

"When asked of her knowledge regarding top secret, secret and confidential classification levels of U.S. government information, Clinton responded that she did not pay attention to the 'level' of classified information and took all classified information seriously," the FBI notes state.

The FBI recommended against prosecuting Clinton this summer, and the Justice Department closed its investigation into her email practices.

Comey called Clinton's handling of classified emails during her tenure as secretary of state "extremely careless" but not worthy of criminal charges.

"All the [similar] cases prosecuted involved some combination of clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the U.S. or efforts of obstruction of justice," Comey said in July. "We do not see those things here."

With no evidence that any work-related emails were intentionally deleted, Comey said it is the FBI's assessment that Clinton "like many email users ... periodically deleted emails or emails were purged when devices were changed."

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