back in the spotlight
State Department officials deny Clinton email investigation has anything to do with Trump
The White House is ramping up its investigation into the email records of as many as 130 current and former State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email, The Washington Post reports.
The officials targeted in the investigation, which was in the spotlight throughout the 2016 presidential election, were notified that emails they sent years ago during Clinton's tenure in the Obama administration have been retroactively classified and may now possibly be considered security violations. State Department investigators reportedly began contacting the former officials about 18 months ago, but seemingly dropped it before the recent contact in August. State Department officials said they are following standard protocol that "avoids any appearance of political bias" and that the timing of the investigation's apparent revival makes perfect sense.
"This has nothing to do with who is in the White House," a senior State Department official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Post. "This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about three-and-a-half years."
However, the subjects of the investigation believe the State Department's recent activity is an example of the Trump administration using executive powers to harm political adversaries. "It is such an obscene abuse of power and time involving so many people for so many years," one former U.S. official said. "This has just sucked up people's lives for years and years." Read more at The Washington Post.