The New York Times changed parts of an exclusive story Thursday about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email while Secretary of State without any notification or response.
The Times first reported two inspectors general had requested the Justice Department to probe “into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state.”
That sentence was changed to “into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state.”
The change seemed subtle enough, but the paper inserted no notifications regarding its reasoning for altering the wording.
The story’s headline was also changed from “Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email” to “Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account.”
According to Politico, co-author of the story Michael Schmidt said the changes came in response to a request from the Clinton campaign.
“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them.”
Clinton’s campaign commented on the Times story, which was “‘significantly revised.”
“Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials,” campaign spokesperson Nick Merrill said. “As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted.”
In an interview with CNN in July, Clinton reiterated she did nothing illegal in using her personal email account as Secretary of State.
The New York Times did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.