Hillary Clinton is still the frontrunner for the Democratic 2016 presidential nomination, but she’s by no means secure—and, according to the FBI, neither is her email. The FBI is investigating the security of Clinton’s controversial private email system.
As Secretary of State, Clinton chose to use her personal email address to communicate, a move that threw the Obama administration’s transparency into question. The FBI is following a request from federal inspectors to look at how Clinton’s unconventional system potentially screwed security, as the Washington Post reports:
The inquiries by the FBI follow concerns from government officials that potentially hundreds of e-mails that passed through Clinton’s private server contained classified or sensitive information. At this point, the probe is preliminary and is focused on ensuring the proper handling of classified material.
Clinton’s use of private email is already a political albatross. People are pissed about this. Ditching official email channels to conduct government business on a personal account makes Clinton look like she skirted federal record-keeping laws—like she had something to hide. It was fodder for countless Benghazi Twitter acrostics.
Plus, even though the government has a crappy reputation for opsec, rigging up a home-brewed email system undoubtedly exposed sensitive emails to security vulnerabilities as well, which makes Clinton look obtuse. But so far, the FBI isn’t antagonizing Clinton. According to the Post, it’s all as copacetic as a politically disastrous probe into cockeyed cybersecurity can be:
The referral did not accuse Clinton of any wrongdoing, and the two officials said Tuesday that the FBI is not targeting her.
We’ll see whether things stay this cordial as the investigation proceeds.
Image via AP
Contact the author at kate.knibbs@gizmodo.com.
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