WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton broke government rules by using a
private email server without approval for her work as U.S. secretary of state,
an internal government watchdog said on Wednesday.

The long-awaited report by the State Department inspector
general was the first official audit of the controversial arrangement to be
made public. It was highly critical of Clinton’s use of a server in her home,
and immediately fueled Republican attacks on Clinton, the Democratic
front-runner in an already acrimonious presidential race.

The report, which also found problems in department
record-keeping practices before Clinton’s tenure, undermined Clinton’s earlier
defenses of her emails, likely adding to Democratic anxieties about public
perceptions of the candidate. A majority of voters say Clinton is dishonest,
according to multiple polls.

The report concluded that Clinton would not have been allowed to
use the server in her home had she asked the department officials in charge of
information security. The report said that staff who later raised concerns were
told to keep quiet. Several suspected hacking attempts in 2011 were never
reported to department information security officials, in breach of department
rules, it said.

“She’s as crooked as they come,” Donald Trump, the
presumptive Republican presidential candidate, said of Clinton at a campaign
rally in Anaheim, California, adding that the report’s findings were “not
good” for her. Clinton’s campaign disagreed, saying the report rebutted
Republican’s criticism.

The inspector general’s office examined email record-keeping
under five secretaries state, both Democratic and Republican. John Kerry, the
current officeholder, and predecessors Madeline Albright, Colin Powell and
Condoleezza Rice all agreed to speak to the inspector general’s investigators.
Clinton was the only one who declined to be interviewed, as did her aides.

The report contradicted Clinton’s repeated assertion that her
server was allowed and that no permission was needed.

Several other inquiries continue, including a U.S. Justice
Department investigation into whether the arrangement broke laws.

The inspector general’s report cited “longstanding,
systemic weaknesses” with State Department records that predated Clinton’s
tenure, and found problems with the email record-keeping of some of her
predecessors, particularly Powell, that failed to comply with the Federal
Records Act.

But it singled out Clinton for her decision to use a private
server in her home in Chappaqua, New York, for government business.

“OIG found no evidence that the Secretary requested or
obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email
account on her private server,” the report said, using an abbreviation for
the office of inspector general.

The report said Clinton should have discussed the arrangement
with the department’s security and technology officials. Officials told
investigators that they “did not – and would not – approve her exclusive
reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business.” The
reason, those officials said, is because it breached department rules and presented
“security risks.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he would not
“challenge” those findings. He told reporters the department was
aware of hacking attempts on Clinton’s server, but had no evidence that any
were successful.

He did not address the report’s criticism of Clinton’s use of a
private server, something no other secretary of state has done.

Democrats, including fundraisers for Clinton’s campaign, said
the report revealed nothing new.

“It’s digging and digging and digging,” Amy Rao, the
chief executive of data company Integrated Archive Systems and a Clinton
fundraiser, said in an interview, comparing the investigation to probes the
Clintons faced in the 1990s. “Trust me: There’s no there there. It’s
Whitewater.”