WASHINGTON — The State Department on Saturday provided more detail about a 2011 document at the center of Hillary Clinton’s latest e-mail controversy, as an official said the former secretary of state never received the paper by nonsecure fax. But many other questions remained unanswered.
Clinton, whose presidential campaign has been challenged by her use of a private e-mail account while secretary of state, is facing questions anew after Friday’s revelation that she asked an adviser to go around a secure fax system to transmit a set of “talking points” on an unspecified subject.
Clinton told the adviser to turn it “into nonpaper w/no identifying heading and send nonsecure.” Republicans immediately pounced on the exchange and suggested it proved impropriety.
The State Department said Friday that no such document was sent by e-mail.
And on Saturday, a State Department official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the increasingly complicated review of Clinton’s e-mails said the agency “checked its records and found no indication that the document in question was sent to Secretary Clinton using nonsecure fax or e-mail.”
The official, who demanded anonymity, said records instead turned up a secure fax transmission shortly after Clinton’s e-mail exchange with adviser Jake Sullivan on June 17, 2011. The implication was that this was the same document.
