Clinton pvt email server broke rules
Hillary Clinton broke government rules by using a private email server without approval while US secretary of state, an internal government watchdog said yesterday.
The long-awaited report by the State Department inspector general was the first official audit of the controversial arrangement to be made public so far, and was also critical of department record-keeping practices before Clinton's tenure.
It concluded that Clinton, now the front-runner in the race to become the Democratic presidential nominee, would not have been allowed to use the server in her home had she asked the department officials in charge of information security.
The report undermined Clinton's defense of her private server. She said it was allowed and that no permission was needed. The report's highly critical findings included an account of State Department technology staff trying to internally raise concerns about the arrangement in 2010 only to be told to keep quiet by an official in Clinton's office.
It immediately fueled Republican criticism of Clinton in an already acrimonious race. The report will also add to Democratic anxieties about voter perceptions of Clinton as untrustworthy and secretive.
Several other inquiries are continuing, including a US Justice Department investigation into whether the arrangement broke laws.
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