The intelligence community has deemed some of Clinton’s emails “too damaging” to national security to release under any circumstances, a US government official close to the ongoing review told Fox News. It’s unclear what information was in those emails, but it was the first time the State Department acknowledged Clinton’s email correspondence contained “top secret” information, pushing the issue back into the spotlight just days before the first votes of the 2016 election are cast.
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However, intelligence officers told the Associated Press ahead of the release that seven email chains would be withheld in full for containing “top secret” information.
We understandthat these e-mails likely originated on the State Department’s unclassified system before they wereever shared with secretary Clinton, and they have remained onthe department’s unclassifiedsystem for years.
The government forbids the handling of classified information outside secure government-controlled channels.
Clinton has maintained that she never sent any classified information using her personal e-mail-a hosted Exchange server that initially was operated from her own home.
How then could have all of her email communication to staff been preserved in the State Department’s system, as she has said?
Perhaps the only constant in Hillary Clinton’s defense against the email scandal in which she is mired is that her Republican opponents are the only ones keeping it alive.
“This seems to be over-categorization run amok”, it said in statement.
They were supposed to be the last batch of emails from Clinton’s private emails, but the State Department last week asked for a delay in releasing all of them, blaming it on an inter-agency delay.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign said the emails were not marked classified when they were sent and should not be withheld.
While a judge had ordered the department to release all of the emails by the end of January, lawyers for the department said this week that they would miss the deadline and requested another month.
Emails found on Hillary Clinton’s private server jeopardized “sources, methods and lives”.
Messages were marked “top secret” because they would cause “exceptionally grave” damage to national security if disclosed, the State Department said.
The State Department also said Friday that 18 emails between Clinton and President Barack Obama were being withheld from disclosure. While her Republican presidency rivals are demanding Clinton’s prosecution. Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent classified information through her private accounts.
Even if Mrs Clinton did not write or forward the messages, she would still have been required to report any classification slippages she recognised in emails she received. They argue that in one case, the emails appear to involve information from a published news article.
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“This is very much like Benghazi”, she said, referring to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in that Libyan city that left four Americans dead.
