Some of Hillary Clinton's emails were 'more than top secret', official says
Inspector General Charles McCullough wrote that of ‘several dozen’ classified emails found, some contained highly sensitive ‘special access programs’ details
Some of the classified emails found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s home server were even more sensitive than top secret, according to an inspector general for the intelligence community.
Inspector general Charles McCullough sent a letter to lawmakers last Friday saying that several dozen additional classified emails have been found, including ones containing information from so-called “special access programs”. Intelligence officials say special access programs have a higher classification than top secret because they are about highly sensitive programs and could reveal sources of information.
The finding was first reported on Tuesday by Fox News.
Federal investigators are looking into the Democratic presidential candidate’s email set-up amid concerns that classified information may have passed through the system.
Clinton provided the server to the FBI in August. She has said she did not send or receive information that was classified at the time via her personal email account.
McCullough sent the letter in response to inquiries from congressional committees about the classification methods used to review the Clinton emails. In responding to the request, McCullough said he sought sworn declarations from those involved in reviewing the emails.
“These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined … to be at the confidential, secret and top secret/sap levels,” according to the letter, which also was obtained by the Associated Press.
The Clinton campaign dismissed the finding by referring to “the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months”. In a statement, the campaign said the finding “does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received”.
The campaign added: “It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The Justice Department’s inquiry should be allowed to proceed without any further interference.”
The State Department is under court order to release the 55,000 emails that Clinton submitted to her former agency that were on her private server and were not personal. Almost all have been released, with the last batch expected on 29 January.
John Kirby, a spokesman for State Department, said the department is committed to releasing Clinton’s emails in a way that protects sensitive information. He said the Freedom of Information Act review process is still under way and said once it is complete, “if it is determined that information should be classified as top secret, we will do so”.
Comments 130
It is a bit absurd for the Guardian to latch onto and report anything that Fox News reports as credible. However, should we believe the Clinton campaign?:
Maybe we will never know the truth but if Fox News is pushing this it has right wing spin all over it.
In the end voters must decide whether they want Clinton or Sanders vs. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, etc. Such an opportunity by the right and they waste it with such poor choices.
It is not the "email" or the form that is classified. Rather, it is the information it contains within it that is classified. The fact that either Hillary or the party on the other end or both did not mark it as such is utterly irrelevant.
It is the obligation of everybody involved with limited access or special access classified information to understand and protect the sensitive intelligence materials, the sources that provided them, and the uses for which they are intended.
By moving the process for transmitting classified information from her official office to her home, Hillary took out of the picture the skilled staff that is cleared, trained, and dedicated to insuring the safety of these documents. They do not become "unclassified" because they were not logged and stamped, particularly if she or her staff were the ones that avoided or bypassed the official process for doing so.
There is no spin on the fact that she deliberately mishandled top secret information, and she did so routinely for a considerable time.
These e-mails most definitively were classified at the time she received and sent them. The “special access programs” is classified automatically because of how the info was collected, not what it contains. Period.
Wow !! This is A grade deflection of the highest order. How did the emails suddenly become top secret if it wasn't at the time he received it?
The more I hear about Clinton , the more I think why Bernie Sanders is a far better candidate to be nominated.
she ^
A more interesting question is how the emails found their way from supposedly secure, classified Government email systems on to Clinton's system. You don't simply connect TS systems to the nearest Internet access point.
Clinton has almost certainly broken the rules, but a weakness in Governmemt security is being ignored or covered up.
As this "Clinton e-mail" scandal drags on and no real charges are made against Mrs Clinton, at some point most of the public other than the hard-core Republicans or Clinton hater will come to conclusion that this investigation has now become t political witch hunt of sort, with tax payers money being further wasted.
But she is a witch.
Can you build a bridge out of her?