Hillary Clinton has said on at least 15 different occasions that she took classified information "seriously" or even "very seriously" despite her use of a home-brewed email server while at the State Department.
The Democratic presidential nominee said it again this week on her plane, telling reporters, "I take classification seriously."
Asked by ABC’s David Muir in an interview that aired Tuesday what she thought of FBI Director James Comey’s belief that she was "extremely careless" with classified information, Clinton said, "I respectfully disagree."
Comey detailed the classified material contained on Clinton’s private server in a statement on July 5:
For example, seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on email (that is, excluding the later "up-classified" emails).
Eighteen months after Clinton’s private server came to light, she is still answering questions about her email practices and handling of classified material. Notes from the FBI’s three-hour interview with Clinton released last week showed, among other revelations, that Clinton’s aides smashed some of her old mobile devices with hammers.
Clinton claimed repeatedly she never sent nor received classified information on her private server, later clarifying that she did not send or receive anything "marked" classified. Both statements were proven false by the FBI’s findings.
Her interview with Muir this week came almost exactly a year after she apologized in an interview with him for using the server, after months of insisting she did nothing wrong.