Hillary Emails Update: Clinton Never Signed Record-Release Form After Leaving State Department

Hillary Clinton never signed a form indicating she had handed over official records after stepping down as secretary of state in 2013, a spokeswoman for the State Department said Tuesday. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the department had reviewed Clinton’s file and not found “any record” of her having signed such a statement.

"We’re fairly certain she didn’t sign one,” Psaki said. Psaki added Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, who preceded Clinton as secretary, had not signed the form either.

The form, known as an OF-109, could matter because if Clinton signed the form, her critics say, she may have committed a crime by sending emails from her personal account instead of a government account during her tenure as secretary of state, Politico reported. She turned thousands of work-related emails over to the State Department in December. The OF-109 acknowledges that officials have turned over classified and unclassified government-related records upon departure, the Associated Press reported.

Republicans have seized on the question of the OF-109 form as an opportunity to criticize Clinton further in what is the latest episode in several weeks of political drama. In early March, news broke Clinton had used a personal email account and server during her tenure as secretary of state.

An aide to House Speaker John Boehner wrote on the speaker’s website Tuesday signing OF-109 was something “all State Department employees must do when they leave their jobs.” If Clinton did sign the form, he wrote, “That’s a big problem.”

But to the State Department, whether or not signing that form was actually routine was unclear. “We’re looking into how standard this is across the federal government and certainly at the State Department," Psaki said. "I don’t want to characterize how common [a] practice it is.”

Failing to sign the form does not carry penalties of which the Statement Department is aware, Psaki added. “It’s not a violation of any rule,” she said.