A report that the State Department inspector general released Wednesday "directly contradicts" assertions Hillary Clinton has made in defense of her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, MSNBC reported Wednesday.
"There’s a lot in this report that seems to directly contradict assertions that Hillary Clinton has been making about her use of private emails," MSNBC investigative reporter Ken Dilanian told network host Andrea Mitchell.
The IG report says Clinton failed to comply with National Archives and Records Administration regulations on the use of personal email accounts by senior administration officials.
"She did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act," the report reads. "Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary."
The IG report is "the first independent official review of Clinton’s use of a private email server" and "very critical of Hillary Clinton, her use of the private server, and her failure to turn over her emails to the department before she left," Mitchell said before asking Dilanian to explain further.
"This report by the State Department’s independent watchdog, a man appointed by President Obama, essentially concludes that Clinton violated the Federal Records Act by not turning over those emails, by not printing them out and turning them over, and that her explanation that she was sending them to people in the department, so, therefore, they were preserved, is not valid, is not appropriate," Dilanian explained.
"The report also details a number of occasions where people inside the State Department were raising concerns about her use of a private email server and the issue of federal records," Dilanian said. "And their concerns didn’t go anywhere; they were rebuffed. There was one example where a director said, ‘Please never speak of this again.’"
The IG report also found that Clinton’s senior staffers violated recordkeeping regulations with their use of emails.
This new development may be a difficult hurdle for Clinton as she continues to battle Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) for the Democratic presidential nomination and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has begun launching attacks against her for being "crooked."
Clinton and her senior staffers refused to sit down with the IG for interviews as he was conducting his investigation, according to the report.