Hillary Clinton admits she 'may have short-circuited' her email story

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

published 5 August 2016

Hillary Clinton insisted Friday that she's always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. During a rare presser at a joint convention held by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Clinton defended her statements against reporters' suggestions that her version of the story was different from FBI Director James Comey's. "What I told the FBI, which [Comey] said was truthful, is consistent with what I said publicly," Clinton said.

However, she admitted there is a slight caveat: "I may have short-circuited, and for that, I will try to clarify," Clinton said, in response to a question about why despite her assurances that none of her emails were classified at the time of sending, Comey said three emails were marked as such.

Clinton said that those emails simply had not been accurately marked. "So, that leaves the 100 out of 30,000 emails that Director Comey testified contained classified information, but again, he acknowledged there were no markings on those 100 emails," Clinton said. "And so, what we have here is pretty much what I have been saying throughout this whole year, and that is that I never sent or received anything that was marked classified."