FBI interviews Hillary Clinton about email arrangement

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the 2016 US election Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Saturday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about her email arrangement while she was US secretary of state, according to a campaign spokesman.

"Secretary Clinton gave a voluntary interview this morning about her email arrangements while she was Secretary," Xinhua quoted campaign spokesman Nick Merrill as saying.

"She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion," said Merrill, adding that no details of the interview would be offered.

According to The New York Times, the interview lasted about three and a half hours at FBI Headquarters in Washington.

The long-awaited interview came as federal officials were expected to soon wrap up their investigation into Clinton's personal email setup during her stint as US secretary of state.

It also came days after a private and impromptu meeting between former US President Bill Clinton and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch early this week at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona rekindled concerns about a potential conflict of interest while Clinton was still under federal investigation.

In an apparent move to quell such concerns, Lynch said on Friday that she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup.

At a press conference in March 2015, Clinton acknowledged that she had exchanged about 60,000 emails from her private email account during her stint in the Obama administration, among which about half were personal and thus deleted.

In response to requests from the State Department, the Clinton camp turned over the other half, roughly 30,000 emails in total, to the State Department in December, 2014.

Currently, federal investigators were probing into whether Clinton had mishandled classified information.

--IANS

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