CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin says he regrets role in playing up Clinton email story

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Monday said he regretted the role he played in amplifying the coverage of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server after a report last week that found “no persuasive evidence” of classified information being systematically or deliberately mishandled.

{mosads}“Note the mostly buried news that State Dept closed @HillaryClinton email probe with this verdict: no big deal,” Toobin tweeted Monday morning. “As a journalist, I regret my role in blowing this story out of proportion.”

Note the mostly buried news that State Dept closed @HillaryClinton email probe with this verdict: no big deal. As a journalist, I regret my role in blowing this story out of proportion.https://t.co/Ls7zto7uDJ

— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) October 21, 2019

A multiyear internal State Department review cited 38 people for violations in the use of the server and warned that using the private email system for State Department business added an “increased degree of risk” but that it did not find “systemic misuse” of classified information.

“While there were some instances of classified information being inappropriately introduced into an unclassified system in furtherance of expedience, by and large, the individuals interviewed were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them in their operations,” the report stated.

Media coverage of Clinton’s use of the server while secretary of State, as well as Republicans seizing on it, became a recurring headache for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Then-FBI Director James Comey took the rare step of holding a July 2016 press conference stating that Clinton and other officials were “extremely careless” in handling classified information but said that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges.