Origin of key Clinton emails from report are a mystery

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was supposed to have turned over all work-related emails to the State Department to be released to the public. But an agency audit found atleast three emails never seen before -- including Clinton's own explanation of why she wantedher emails kept private.

After 14 months of public scrutiny and skepticism over Clinton's motives in keepingher emails secret, new questions emerged Thursday. They centered on her apparent failure to turnover a November 2010 message in which she worried that her personal messages could becomeaccessible to outsiders, along with two other messages a year later that divulged possible securityweaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state.

The Clinton campaign has previously denied that her home server was breached, but newlyrevealed emailsshow an aide worried it could have been compromised.

The existence of these previously unreleasedmessages -- which appear to have been foundamong electronic files of four formertop Clinton State Department aides -- renewsconcerns that Clinton was not completelyforthcoming when she turned over a trove of55,000 pages of work-related emails. And it hasdrawn fresh criticism from presumptive Republican

presidential nominee Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Clinton said she had been forthcoming with her personal emails.

"I have provided all of my work-related emails, and I've asked that they be made public, and I thinkthat demonstrates that I wanted to make sure that this information was part of the officialrecords," Clinton said, according to an interview transcript provided by ABC News.

Most of those messages have been made public by the State Department over the past year due toboth a court order and Clinton's willingness to turn them over. But hundreds were censored fornational security reasons and 22 emails were completely withheld because the agency said theycontained top secret material -- a matter now under investigation by the FBI.

Clinton said in March 2015 that she would turn over all work-related emails to the State Departmentafter removing private messages that contained personal and family material. "No one wants theirpersonal emailsmade public and I think most people understand that and respect their privacy," shesaid after her exclusive use of private emails to conduct State Department business was confirmedby media reports.

Senate investigators have asked for numerous emails about Clinton's server as part of their owninquiry intoClinton's email practices in recent months, but they didn't get copies of key messages

made public by the State Department's own watchdog this week, a senior Republican senator saidThursday.

"It is disturbing that the State Department knew it had emails like this and turned them over to theinspector general, but not to Congress," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the chair of the Senatejudiciary committee that's been probing Clinton's use of a private server.

The emails appear to contain work-related passages, raising questions about why they were notturned over to the State Department last year. The inspector general noted that Clinton's productionof work-relatedemails was "incomplete," missing not only the three emails but numerous otherscovering Clinton's first four months in office.

The inspector general also found Clinton's email set up violated agency policies and could have leftsensitive government information vulnerable to cyberattacks. But Thursday, Clinton told ABC Newsher use of the personal email was "allowed," saying that "the rules have been clarified since I left."

The Clinton campaign permitted one reporter from ABC News to ask the candidate questions. Otheroutlets were later provided with a transcript. A spokesman for the Clinton campaign did not respondto emailedquestions Thursday. An inspector general's spokesman declined to discuss the report.

The report said the inspector general was able to reconstruct some of Clinton's missing emails bysearching the email files of four former Clinton aides who had turned over thousands of pages ofcommunications in 2015 at the request of the State Department, which is defending itself in multiplepublic records lawsuits, including one filed by The Associated Press. The four aides who turned overthose files, according to the report, were Clinton's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and top aidesHuma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines.

Abedin was the aide who authored the key email in November 2010 thatprovoked Clinton's concerns about outsiders obtaining her personal emails. After the StateDepartment's computer spam filters apparently prevented Clinton from sending a message to alldepartment employees from her private server, Abedin suggested that she either open an officialagency email or make her private address available to the agency.

Clinton told Abedin she was open to getting a separate email address but didn't want "any risk of thepersonal being accessible." Clinton never used an official State Department address, only usingseveral private addresses to communicate. Abedin, Mills, Sullivan and Reines all also usedprivate email addresses to conduct business, along with their government accounts.

Two other emails sent to Abedin were cited in the inspector general's report, but also did not turn upamong the emails released by Clinton. Those messages to Abedin contained warnings in January2011 from an unidentified aide to former President Bill Clinton who said he had to shut downHillary Clinton's New York-based server because of suspected hacking attacks.

In response, Abedin warned Mills and Sullivan not to email Clinton "anything sensitive" and said shewould "explain more in person."