Clinton's Email Scandal Could Turn Criminal

Hillary Clinton's personal email account housed "hundreds of potentially classified emails," according to a June 29 memo from the inspectors general for the State Department and our intelligence agencies. And the two inspectors general are now pushing the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation, sources tell the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The presidential hopeful maintains "no classified material" passed through her personal servers. However, portions of 55,000 pages of emails, including those in the latest dump, have as part of the State Department's review been labelled classified. The Times reports it isn't clear if information in Clinton's emails was considered classified when the messages were sent or received.

"She followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials," a Clinton rep said today, per CNN. "As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted." A second memo sent July 17 claims at least one unspecified email released by the State Department into the public domain included classified information. The two inspectors general have also panned the department's dependance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to make classification determinations; intelligence agencies were apparently not consulted. Senior officials tell the Times the Justice Department hasn't decided if it will conduct an investigation. (More Hillary Clinton stories.)