A U.S. Justice Department official said Friday it has been asked to open an investigation into the possible compromise of classified information in Hillary Clinton's private email accounts when she was secretary of state, but not a criminal probe.
The official denied a New York Times report that two federal inspectors general -- from the State Department and U.S. intelligence community -- had asked for a criminal probe.
The New York Times later corrected its piece.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Congress posted on a House of Representatives website Friday, the two inspector generals write that in a review of a "limited sampling" of Clinton's emails, at least four contained classified information that should not have appeared in a private email.
The Wall Street Journal quotes a spokesperson for the inspector general for the intelligence community (I. Charles McCullough) as saying, the four emails were "classified when they were sent and are classified now."
The spokesperson added there could be many more communications that may have been secret or top secret in Clinton's private email account.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday there are a lot of "inaccuracies" in the newspaper reports.
"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody," Clinton said in steamy New York City. "I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House committee. We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and I will do my part."
Clinton had authorized the State Department to make 55,000 pages of email public.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said a team is processing them for future digital publication. Toner said some of the emails did not need to be classified at the time they were sent, but have since been reexamined and upgraded as classified.
The email controversy has become an issue in Clinton's presidential campaign.
She denies doing anything wrong, and she said it was more "convenient" to use one email account and one device when she was secretary of state.
"Looking back, it would have been better if I had simply used a second email account and carried a second phone," Clinton said in March. "But at the time, it didn't seem like an issue."
Critics have accused her of trying to hide controversial communications in her private account, including those surrounding the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.
