The FBI interviewed\u00a0Hillary Clinton\u00a0on Saturday morning as part of the investigation into her use of a private email server\u00a0for official emails while she served as secretary of State, campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion,” Merrill\u00a0said in a statement, describing the meeting as voluntary. “Out of respect for the investigative process, she will not comment further on her interview.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 3\u00bd-hour interview was conducted at\u00a0FBI headquarters in downtown\u00a0Washington, according to a Clinton aide.\u00a0The meeting had been anticipated as the FBI investigates\u00a0whether classified information was compromised by her email arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republican\u00a0National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus described the questioning of Clinton as unprecedented for a major party presidential candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That the FBI wanted her for questioning reinforces her central role in deliberately creating a culture which put her own political ambitions above State Department rules and jeopardized our national security,” Priebus said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Justice Department aim is to finish\u00a0its probe and recommend\u00a0whether charges should be filed before the\u00a0Republican and Democratic national conventions, which start the week of July 18, ABC News reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday,\u00a0Attorney General\u00a0Loretta Lynch\u00a0said\u00a0she will accept the\u00a0decision of career prosecutors, investigators and FBI Director\u00a0James Comey\u00a0on whether to bring criminal charges in the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unusual public announcement\u00a0during an event in Aspen, Colo.,\u00a0came as the attorney general faced\u00a0a storm of criticism related to an\u00a0awkward encounter with former president\u00a0Bill Clinton\u00a0after the two crossed paths earlier this week at Phoenix’s\u00a0Sky Harbor International Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This case will be resolved by the team that has been working on it from the beginning,” Lynch said, acknowledging that the meeting with Bill Clinton “cast a shadow” over the ongoing inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the FBI director and the Justice Department prosecutors disagree on whether to prosecute, Lynch may have to delegate that tie-breaking decision to a deputy, said professor\u00a0Carl Tobias of the\u00a0University of Richmond School of Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The State Department’s Office of Inspector General issued an audit in May that\u00a0found the former secretary of State\u00a0disregarded\u00a0cybersecurity guidelines by using a private email server during her tenure there and she\u00a0did not seek authorization for her email account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The audit also\u00a0found Clinton and her predecessors as\u00a0secretary\u00a0of State poorly managed\u00a0computer systems.\u00a0By the time Clinton\u00a0took over as secretary of State in\u00a02009, the standards for email security were “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated” than for previous secretaries of State.\u00a0The department revised guidelines\u00a0through 2011, according to the report,\u00a0and\u00a0“Secretary Clinton’s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the\u00a0recommendations in the\u00a0report were limited to forward-looking measures\u00a0to better inform employees of department\u00a0policies and for improving cvbersecurity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The FBI interviewed\u00a0Hillary Clinton\u00a0on Saturday morning as part of the investigation into her use of a private email server\u00a0for official emails while she served as secretary of State, campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1505],"class_list":["post-43327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"U7DLGNGJDNCLHPX5AQ2V75PDEM","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2016\/07\/02\/fbi-clinton-talk-for-31-2-hours-over-emails-sent-on-private-server\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n