The revelation marked the first time the State Department has found anything highly classified in the former secretary of state’s correspondence, and it also now raises the possibility that Mrs Clinton’s decision to use her own e-mail server while in government service might have resulted in a serious breach.
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The documents are being upgraded at the request of the Intelligence Community because they contain a category of top secret information.
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.
Still, the timing of the State Department announcement, coming just three days before the pivotal Iowa caucuses, and the nature of that announcement seem likely to further complicate a situation that has already caused Clinton and her campaign huge amounts of agita since the existence of her private email server was revealed nearly one year ago to the day.
Hillary Clinton is in damage control over new information about the private email server she used as secretary of state, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman.
The Clinton campaign criticized the State Department’s decision as the result of “bureaucratic infighting” and “over-classification run amok”, adding that the emails should be released.
The big news associated with today’s release of more Hillary Clinton emails isn’t the content of any email released.
The Friday afternoon interview came as her campaign issued an official statement about the e-Mails, in which it insists that she wants them released, not withheld by the State Department.
Hillary should have had the discernment, wisdom and just plain common sense not to put the country’s intelligence secrets at risk by using a private server for her work-related emails.
The State Department released the batch of emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state on Friday.
State Department officials said that withholding the e-mails based on the sensitive information in them is “the prudent, responsible thing to do”. She has struggled in surveys measuring perceived trustworthiness and any investigation, buoyed by evidence of top secret material coursing through her account, could negate a main selling point for her becoming commander in chief: her national security resume.
Clinton has encouraged the State Department to release her email as quickly as possible and, when delays have occurred, her campaign has been quick to point out that they do not control the schedule, which was set by the court and government bureaucrats. “She has now definitively – without any question – lied to us”. The department’s spokesman, John Kirby, said that exchanges did not involve classified information. Both said her account was never hacked or compromised, which security experts assess as unlikely.
Days later, she changed her tune again, adopting the now-familiar claim that she did not send or receive information that was “marked” as such.
The inspector general of American intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III, disagrees. “Questions about classification at the time emails were sent are being, and will be, handled separately by the State Department”.
Judge Napolitano called today’s revelations “another blow to Hillary Clinton’s credibility and another avenue for the FBI to investigate”.
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“The seven emails, or a few emails at any rate, are being withheld at the request of the intelligence community itself”, he told reporters.
