Special to WorldTribune.com

Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email narrative had finally seemed to run its course as a top news story when Washington was entering the dog days of summer.

Then, from of all places, her former place of employment — the State Department — suddenly injected new life into the scandal on July 1 by announcing that a significant number of her private stash of emails contained classified information. That made her exclusive use of an unsecured, at-home server during her tenure as secretary of state a far more serious affair.

[On July 24] two inspectors general issued statements chastising Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, for keeping secrets on an unprotected server. According to a point-by-point analysis, the inspectors’ memos directly contradict Mrs. Clinton’s explanation for months on how she operated her email account to conduct State Department business instead of a State.gov address like every other employee.

Mrs. Clinton and her backers repeatedly have said she did not circulate classified information while secretary of state, and if there were such information, it was not secret during her 2009-2013 tenure. But a memo from I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, and a joint statement by he and the State Department IG, said information stored on the server was classified at the time it was disseminated. …

Mrs. Clinton’s reliance on a server kept at her home in Chappaqua, New York, could prompt a formal investigation by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, which handles cases of unauthorized disclosures of government secrets.

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  By storing and disseminating classified material on her private email server, Hillary Clinton could face special prosecutor, LIFE, WorldTribune.com