Origin of key Clinton emails from report are a mystery

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the home of Nathan Smith during a campaign stop in Fort Mitchell, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the home of Nathan Smith during a campaign stop in Fort Mitchell, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was supposed to have turned over all work-related emails to the State Department to be released to the public. However, an agency audit found at least three emails never seen before - including Clinton's own explanation of why she wanted her emails kept private.

After 14 months of public scrutiny and skepticism over Clinton's motives in keeping her emails secret, new questions emerged Thursday. They centered on her apparent failure to turn over a November 2010 message in which she worried her personal messages could become accessible to outsiders, along with two other messages a year later that divulged possible security weaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state.

The Clinton campaign has previously denied her home server was breached, but newly revealed emails show an aide worried it could have been compromised.

The existence of these previously unreleased messages - which appear to have been found among electronic files of four former top Clinton State Department aides - renews concerns Clinton was not completely forthcoming when she turned over a trove of 55,000 pages of work-related emails. Also, it has drawn fresh criticism from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

"I have turned over all my emails," Clinton said late Wednesday in an interview with Univision's Los Angeles affiliate. "No one else can say that."

Most of those messages have been made public by the State Department over the past year due to both a court order and Clinton's willingness to turn them over. However, hundreds were censored for national security reasons and 22 emails were completely withheld because the agency said they contained top secret material - a matter now under investigation by the FBI.

Clinton said in March 2015 that she would turn over all work-related emails to the State Department after removing private messages that contained personal and family material. "No one wants their personal emails made public and I think most people understand that and respect their privacy," she said after her exclusive use of private emails to conduct State Department business was confirmed by media reports.

Senate investigators have asked for numerous emails about Clinton's server as part of their own inquiry into Clinton's email practices in recent months, but they didn't get copies of key messages made public by the State Department's own watchdog this week, a senior Republican senator said Thursday.

"It is disturbing that the State Department knew it had emails like this and turned them over to the inspector general, but not to Congress," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee that's been probing Clinton's use of a private server.

The emails appear to contain work-related passages, raising questions about why they were not turned over to the State Department last year. The inspector general noted Clinton's production of work-related emails was "incomplete," missing not only the three emails but numerous others covering Clinton's first four months in office.