Hillary Clinton Emails: Justice Department Says No Request For Criminal Investigation

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it did not receive a request to open a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account during her time as secretary of state. The department confirmed it had been asked to review the handling of classified information related to Clinton’s personal emails from 2009 through 2013, but it was not a criminal referral, Reuters reported.

The department’s statement followed a New York Times report late Thursday that said Justice Department officials received a request from two unnamed inspector generals to open a criminal investigation.

The U.S. State Department is reviewing around 55,000 pages of Clinton’s private emails sent during her four-year tenure. According to the memo obtained by the Times, her account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails,” Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management, wrote.

Clinton has denied repeatedly that she shared classified material through her personal account. Portions of several emails under review were redacted because they were later upgraded to classified status. But it’s unclear if the State Department had marked the information in those emails as classified when Clinton sent or received them, the Times reported.