The State Department said that it could not confirm a figure Hillary Clinton cited during testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday, suggesting that it was fashioned by her presidential campaign.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a State Department spokesman said Friday that the agency could not "confirm" Clinton’s claim that between 90 and 95 percent of her work emails were already preserved in the State Department’s computer system because she emailed other government officials on their work accounts.
The former secretary of state told the committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday that "90 to 95 percent of my work related emails were in the State’s system, if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so."
However, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday at a press briefing that he was not "aware" of the figure.
"I’m not aware that we have given that figure," Toner said. "I’m not in a position right now to confirm that."
Moreover, the department spokesman said that Clinton’s campaign had been citing the figure and directed reporters to instead question the campaign about "the rationale or the background behind it."
Clinton said during her testimony that the figure came from the State Department.
"We learned that from the State Department and their analysis of the emails that were already on the system," she told the committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks. "We were trying to help them close some gaps that they had."
Clinton has endured criticism for months over her use of a personal email system while at the State Department. The FBI began investigating her private server after the inspector general of the intelligence community determined that multiple emails held on the system contained information that was classified at the time they were sent.
The Democratic presidential candidate has maintained that she never sent nor received information marked classified on her personal email.