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 The inspector general who oversees U.S. intelligence agencies
wrote in a letter to members of Congress on Thursday that a sampling
of 40 of about 30,000 emails sent or received by Clinton found at
least four that contained information the government had classified
as secret.
The information was classified at the time the emails were sent,
according to the inspector general, Charles McCullough.
"This classified information should never have been transmitted via
an unclassified personal system," McCullough said in a joint
statement on Friday along with his equivalent at the State
Department, Steve Linick.
The information remains classified to this day, the statement said.
The emails in question are not among those the State Department,
which plans to eventually release as many as information laws allow,
has already made public.
Clinton has said no classified information was contained in her
emails, a large portion of which she handed over to the State
Department last year.
 It remains unclear if the classified information was included in
emails sent by Clinton, or only in those received by her. The
inspectors general do not say whether they believe Clinton was aware
the information was classified.
Clinton's use of her private email account linked to a server in her
New York home 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 front-runner to represent the Democratic Party
in the November 2016 election, Clinton has repeatedly said she broke
no laws or rules by eschewing a standard government email account.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill did not respond to questions about
the assertions made by the inspectors general. He has previously
said the former first lady "followed appropriate practices in
dealing with classified materials."
CONCERN ABOUT SERVER
Even those who use an official government account for work cannot
send classified information via email, State Department officials
have said, but must use separate secure communication systems.
But the inspectors general said in their statement that their main
concern was "to notify security officials that classified
information may exist on at least one private server and thumb drive
that are not in the government's possession."
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This may encourage some of Clinton's Republican opponents, who have
unsuccessfully tried to get Clinton to relinquish her private email
server for inspection, to renew their efforts.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it had been notified of
the concerns of the inspectors general and was weighing whether to
look into the possible mishandling of classified information.
Clinton handed over some 30,000 emails from the private account to
the State Department after she quit in 2013, but many thousands of
others that she says are not related to her work were deleted.
Clinton did not directly address the statements made by the
inspectors general on Friday. But at the start of a speech in New
York, she deviated briefly from planned remarks about her economic
platform to address the latest round of news reports about the email
issue.
"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts
right, and I will do my part," Clinton said.
McCullough said State Department officials told his office "that
there are potentially hundreds of classified emails within the
approximately 30,000 provided by former Secretary Clinton."
Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have
seized on the email scandal to portray Clinton as continuing
secretive practices they say they also characterized President Bill
Clinton's eight years in office.
While Clinton faces little competition for the Democratic Party's
nomination, several recent polls have found a majority of voters
find her untrustworthy, a perception exacerbated by controversy over
her emails.
(Writing by Alistair Bell, additional reporting by Doina Chiacu;
Editing by John Whitesides and Tom Brown)
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