Clinton apologizes for not knowing what ‘(C)’ stood for: ‘I take classification seriously’
.@HillaryClinton defends not knowing State Department classification markings to @DavidMuir https://t.co/BwBkIZjfaP pic.twitter.com/QL7raHEz0U
— ABC News (@ABC) September 6, 2016
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday apologized for her misunderstanding of the State Department’s email classification system, adding that she takes the issue “seriously.”
{mosads}”I have learned that trying to explain what happened made it sound to some people like I was trying to excuse it. There are no excuses,” the former secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee told ABC News in an interview airing Tuesday.
“I take responsibility. I made a mistake. I’ve apologized, and obviously I wish I could do differently what happened. I certainly would never do that again.”
Clinton also told ABC she hopes the report ends “selective cherry picking and leaks” from congressional Republicans.
“There were a couple of emails with a tiny ‘C’ in a parenthesis, which did not have a header saying that means confidential in this circumstance and which the director of the FBI has said and the State Department has said those couple of emails were improperly marked even with that. So, yes I take classification seriously and I think the record shows that I have,” said Clinton.
When testifying before the House Oversight Committee in July, FBI Director James Comey said that Clinton may have not known that “(C),” which was marked on three of her email chains, stood for information that was confidential.
The summary of the FBI report that was released on Friday also noted that Clinton told the investigators that she thought the letter indicated an alphabetical order of paragraphs, not a classification system.
“When asked what the parenthetical ‘C’ meant before a paragraph within the captioned email, [Clinton] stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order,” read the FBI’s notes.
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