The New York Times issued a correction to its flawed report on a potential Department of Justice probe into Hillary Clinton's use of personal email while at the State Department.

After publishing a July 23 report that cited anonymous government officials to claim federal investigators were seeking a criminal probe into Clinton's use of personal email, the Times made dramatic alterations to the post, walking back the claim that Clinton was the target of the probe with no acknowledgement of the correction.

The Times initially said they would not issue a correction for the change, claiming there had been no “factual error,” but issued a formal correction on the afternoon of July 24 to explain that Clinton was not personally the subject of the referral to investigate:   

An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, using information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton's personal email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.

The Times' correction did not note the clarification from a Justice Department official that the referral was not criminal in nature, which further contradicts the Times' account. 

As of posting, the Times article still appears to falsely characterize the referral as “criminal.”

UPDATE: In a separate article published in the afternoon on July 24, the same NY Times reporters appear to acknowledge that DOJ has not received a “criminal” referral in this matter, writing “On Thursday night and again Friday morning, the Justice Department referred to the matter as a 'criminal referral' but later on Friday dropped the word 'criminal.'” 

The State and Intelligence Community inspectors general have also put out a joint statement stating that there had been no criminal referral.

State & intel IGs put out a joint statement saying it was a counterintelligence referral, not criminal. pic.twitter.com/SZe2h7bBUm

-- Byron Tau (@ByronTau) July 24, 2015

As of this posting, the original Times article is still headlined “Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account,” and continues to claim that the inspectors general “have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation.”