State Department audit faults Clinton for poorly managed email

An internal State Department audit has found fault in the way Hillary Clinton, her aides, and other former secretaries of state managed their electronic communications while in office, The Associated Press reports. A copy of the report by the agency's inspector general cited "longstanding, systemic weakness" in relation to email and computer information security. Additionally, the secretaries were "slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership," the report said.

The internal audit sharply criticized Clinton for failing to request permission to use her personal server, permission that the Office of the Inspector General said "would not" have been approved due to "the security risks in doing so." Clinton's personal server and BlackBerry never proved they could “[meet] minimum information security requirements," the report went on.

The review followed accusations that Clinton had exclusively used her private email account and server while serving as secretary of state. An official publication of the report will be released Thursday.

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Update 12:33 p.m.: Clinton's press secretary has responded to the State Department report on her emails. "While political opponents of Hillary Clinton are sure to misrepresent this report for their own partisan purposes, in reality, the Inspector General documents just [show] how consistent her email practices were with those of the other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email," the statement says. Read the full comments here.