Still, the Clinton campaign on Friday pushed back hard on insinuations that the former state secretary might have failed to protect highly classified information, stressing the messages were not marked as classified at the time they were sent.
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Previously, sensitive information has been redacted from the published messages, but Mr Kirby said the “top secret” emails would not be released, even in part. Seven private email chains of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be withheld from the public in their entirety because they contain top secret information, the US State Department said yesterday.
Department officials wouldn’t describe the substance of the emails, or say if Clinton had sent any herself.
Controversy over the server, which Clinton used for work as Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013, has dogged her campaign to become president.
The emails have been a Clinton campaign issue since 10 months ago, when the AP discovered her exclusive use while in office of a homebrew email server in the basement of her family’s NY home.
The decision to no longer pursue this argument will add to the questions Clinton has faced for months over her handling of sensitive government information as she seeks to maintain her leading position in the Democratic race.
About 7,000 more pages are not ready for release yet and won’t be until after the New Hampshire primary – despite a judge’s orders.
ABC News” Good Morning America ran a package Saturday morning asking the onscreen question “Clinton Emails “Top Secret’: Will Revelation Hurt Her Campaign?”, and featuring ABC News Senior National Correspondent Cecilia Vega observing that “Two days before the (Iowa) caucuses here, these headlines could not have come at a worse time for her”.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest praised Hillary Clinton on Friday for what he said was her unprecedented transparency in calling for the release of her emails.
JOHNSON: Her spokesman, Brian Fallon, says they’re adamantly opposed to withholding any of those messages.
Officials at the State Department have said that the “upgrading” of the classification of Clinton’s emails has been routine.
But Republican candidates have repeatedly attacked Mrs Clinton over her emails, particularly after the FBI investigation was launched. In recent weeks she has more often said none of her emails were marked that way. Federal prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge the man after he agreed to quit his job and have his security clearance revoked, Levin said.
As a career public servant Hillary should have realized that any correspondence issued or received by a Secretary of State had the potential of being retroactively labeled top secret.
Clinton and her staff could be in danger of having their security clearances rescinded, Levin said.
Even if Clinton only read, and didn’t write or forward the secret messages, she still would have been required to report classification slippages that she recognized.
Neither Mr. Kirby nor other officials would discuss the emails now being withheld, but the classified emails include those cited in a letter sent to the Senate on January 14 by the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III.
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The lawyers said there are 9,000 more pages left to review and release.
