Update: The New York Times has altered and corrected its original report:

An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, ​using information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.

The March revelation that presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was using a secret, possibly insecure email server immediately damaged her public image. Now, the New York Times reports, it could lead to criminal charges.

According to the Times:

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state

This comes after months of scrutiny of Clinton’s inbox, including a Gawker/ProPublica exposé revealing her use of an off-the-books foreign intel-gathering network.

The request to the Justice Department follows a series of memos from Steve Linick and I. Charles McCullough, inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community, respectively. You can read the memos in full below, but this portion, dated July 17th, seems to implicate Clinton in the possibly illegal use of classified materials passing through her personal email account, hdr22@clintonemail.com:

The Times says there’s no word out of the Justice Department as to whether they’ll pursue a criminal probe of the Clinton server, but the House Select Committee on Benghazi—which has basically just become the Select Committee on Hillary Clinton’s Email—released this statement:

Committee Members on both sides have been aware of concerns about classified emails within the self-selected records turned over by Secretary Clinton. The Committee appreciates that Inspectors General appointed by President Obama have confirmed this is a serious and nonpartisan national security matter by any objective measure. This certainly merits further review by the Executive Branch to determine the legal and national security implications posed by the former Secretary’s unusual email arrangement in order to mitigate any potential counterintelligence risks and minimize the damage caused by this scheme. These issues should be evaluated under the same strict standards that would apply to anyone found to be in possession of classified information outside of an approved system.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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