Hillary Clinton emails mishandled by 15 State Department employees, review finds

At least 15 people broke State Department rules in mishandling former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s emails, the department said in a review released publicly Monday.

While the full review is not completed, the department said it’s found 23 violations and seven infractions of security protocols related to Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

Some of the 15 people got write-ups placed in their security files at the department, according to a letter sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. Those could affect future attempts to gain security clearances, the department said.

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“The department considers and violation of security policies to be a serious matter,” wrote Mary Elizabeth Taylor, assistance secretary for legislative affairs.

She promised another update when the department’s review is done, but said department policy prohibits naming people dinged for their activities. It’s also not clear how many of them are still at the department.

Mrs. Clinton’s decision to forgo use of an official state.gov account and instead use a secret account tied to a server she kept at her home in New York broke government rules and risked national security, according to multiple investigations.

But Mrs. Clinton was too ignorant of the risks to be able to be charged, former FBI Director James B. Comey concluded in 2016 — a decision the Obama Justice Department quickly ratified, amid the presidential election.

Investigations in 2016 found nearly two dozen emails Mrs. Clinton sent or received contained top secret information, while more than 2,000 others contained classified information.

Few of the messages contained markings making clear the nature of the sensitive information, though security experts said the lack of markings didn’t mean the information wasn’t supposed to be protected at the time.

Mr. Grassley, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, has been pressing the State Department to divulge more details about the aftermath of Mrs. Clinton’s email troubles.

Last year the department told him Mrs. Clinton had asked that her security clearance be suspended, and five other people Mrs. Clinton had designated as researchers in need of clearances had been withdrawn.