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 Clinton's use of her private email for her work as America's top
diplomat came to light in March and drew fire from political
opponents who accused her of sidestepping transparency and
record-keeping laws.
The private account was linked to a server in her New York home. For
months, Republican lawmakers have demanded that Clinton relinquish
the server for inspection by an independent party, which Clinton
said she was not willing to do. Some of those lawmakers quickly
began issuing statements on Tuesday night, saying their concerns
were vindicated as not being motivated only by politics.
The Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation both
declined to comment.
The FBI recently began looking into the security of the federal
records and classified information contained among Clinton's emails.
The U.S. government considers federal records to be government
property.
The Justice Department has said the FBI began investigating after
the inspector general who oversees the U.S. intelligence agencies,
I. Charles McCullough III, formally notified them of his concern
that there was classified information not in the government's
control.
McCullough has said he found at least four emails in a sample of 40
Clinton emails he was allowed to inspect contained information that
was classified at the time it was sent, including two that contained
information deemed "top secret", the highest classification level.
The government forbids the sending of classified information outside
unsecured networks because it could harm national security if
intercepted.
The statement from Nick Merrill, a Clinton campaign spokesman,
suggested the hardware was being handed over as part of the FBI
inquiry. It remained unclear whether this was in response to a
government request, or even came as the result of a subpoena.
"She pledged to cooperate with the government's security inquiry,
and if there are more questions, we will continue to address them,"
Merrill said in a statement. He declined to provide further details.
David Kendall, Clinton's lawyer, did not respond to a request for
comment.
 The FBI has declined to give details about the nature of its
investigation and who it might encompass, although it is likely to
prove an unwelcome distraction for Clinton for months as she tries
to keep voters focused on her policy proposals.
Throughout her four years as secretary of state under President
Barack Obama, Clinton eschewed an official state.gov email address
in favor of a private clintonemail.com email account run from a home
computer server. At least one senior aide, Huma Abedin, also used
the server for some work email.
Clinton said the unusual arrangement broke no rules that were in
force at the time, although the arrangement has caused long delays
in providing federal records to lawmakers and the public to which
they are entitled, critics say.
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Trey Gowdy, the Republican chair of a U.S. House of Representatives
committee investigating the killing of four Americans at a U.S.
diplomatic building in Benghazi, Libya, has said his work has been
hampered in this way.
"This is a serious national security issue, and the seriousness of
it should transcend normal, partisan politics," Gowdy said in a
statement on Tuesday.
Last December, Clinton provided what she said were copies of all the
work emails she had in her possession, nearly two years after she
stepped down as secretary of state.
Clinton handed over about 30,000 emails she sent and received,
although her staff have since acknowledged without explanation that
some work emails are missing. She did not hand over another 30,000
emails from this period that she deemed personal and said she chose
"not to keep".
The State Department has been steadily releasing the emails to the
public in keeping with Clinton's request after redacting parts of
them to remove sensitive or classified information.
A number of polls in recent months have found that more than half of
voters find Clinton untrustworthy, although she remains the favorite
to win the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidential
election in November 2016.
The development was quickly seized by Clinton's Republican opponents
as a chance to portray her not worthy of the White House.
"If Hillary Clinton believed in honesty and transparency, she would
have turned over her secret server months ago to an independent
arbiter, not as a last resort and to the Obama Justice Department,"
Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee,
said in a statement.
Republican John Boehner, the U.S. House of Representatives speaker,
also released a statement saying that Clinton's "mishandling of
classified information must be fully investigated."
(Reporting by Peter Cooney and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bernard
Orr and Ken Wills)
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