By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is weighing a request by two government inspectors general to open a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information in Hillary Clinton's private emails from when she was secretary of state, according to a report in the New York Times.
A Justice Department official confirmed the department received a criminal referral but gave no other details. The Times said the department had not decided whether to pursue a criminal inquiry, citing unnamed government officials.
The Times originally reported that Clinton herself was a target of the criminal referral. It altered its report on its website overnight without explanation to suggest she was not the focus of the referral after all.
In a series of memos to the State Department over the last few weeks, inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies raised concerns about the handling of classified information in the emails as the State Department prepares them for public release.
The memos also raised concerns about the adequacy of the classified network the State Department is now using to store and distribute the archive of emails from Clinton, sent and received while she was the nation's most senior diplomat.
The memo does not directly accuse Clinton of mishandling sensitive information. Clinton is the leading Democratic contender for the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement she "followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials."
Clinton has repeatedly said she broke no laws or rules by eschewing a standard government email account for her State Department work in favour of a private account linked to a computer server in her New York home. She has also said she sent no classified information through email.
Asked about the Times' report, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he did not know about the request, noting that inspectors general operate independently. He said his department was working to publicly release all of the required emails from Clinton.
"We're working very hard to get that done as fast as humanly possible," Kerry told NBC on Friday.
Clinton's exclusive use of a private email account in the past came to light in March, opening her to criticism from political opponents as she began her presidential campaign that she was sidestepping transparency and record-keeping laws.
She said she handed to the State Department last year all the work-related emails she had, amounting to some 55,000 printed pages covering her four-year tenure beginning in 2009, although her staff have recently acknowledged there are gaps in the records she retained.
The State Department is now releasing her emails in batches through to next January.
Some emails have been retroactively marked as classified or containing some sort of sensitive information, the State Department has said, although that does not mean the information was classified when an email was sent.
The inspectors generals, in their memo, reiterated "the need to seek classification expertise from the interagency to act as a final arbiter if there is a question regarding potentially classified material," adding that the issue remained "unresolved."
While Clinton is the clear frontrunner for the Democratic Party's nomination, several recent polls have found a majority of voters find her untrustworthy, a perception likely to be exacerbated by any federal criminal investigation.
Republicans have seized on the email scandal in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. The Republican National Committee, in a statement Friday, urged the DOJ to investigate.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of 16 Republican presidential candidates, told CBS the request of the inspectors general needs to be taken seriously and that he had "deep concerns" about Clinton's emails.
"But even more concerning is the constant drama that surrounds anything Clinton," Rubio said.
(The story was refiled to correct references in paragraphs 4 to number, timing and sources of memos to State)