State Department spokesman Mark Toner could not definitively say that Hillary Clinton's private email server had not been hacked during a briefing Wednesday.
The State Department’s inspector general confirmed Wednesday in a scathing report that Clinton's use of the private server for official business violated federal regulations meant to ensure the safety of classified information. The report contradicted claims made by Clinton and her campaign that her conduct was fully above board.
Questions about the server's security have circulated since last year when its existence was revealed. A Romanian hacker known as "Guccifer," who pled guilty to hacking-related charges Wednesday, claims he successfully breached Clinton’s server.
"There were hack attempts on her server," a reporter said. "How did that not bring a reassessment that maybe this wasn't the best strategy?"
Toner said there were unsuccessful attempts to hack the server, but the reporter retorted that the inspector general report did not characterize the attempts as successful or unsuccessful.
"I apologize, actually," Toner said. "I misspoke."
"Do you have any reason to think that there was a successful attempt?" another reporter asked.
"Thank you for giving me the chance to clarify. The OIG report doesn't address, specifically, the security of her system, including whether or not any of the reported attempted hacks were successful," Toner said. "For that, I would just have to refer you to her team to talk about whether there were, or whether any were successful ... To our knowledge, there were not, but I don't know that's a comprehensive knowledge."