For almost a year Hillary has been claiming there was no classified information on her unsecured home-based email server.
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Friday’s revelations came three days prior to the first votes of the 2016 primary elections being cast in Iowa, where Mrs Clinton is locked in a close contest with Mr Sanders.
The second biggest news may be the State Department’s announcement that it is commencing an investigation to see if “if any of the information was classified at the time of transmission” to Clinton’s private server.
Spokesman John Kirby said the emails, which he described as “22 documents covering 37 pages”, would therefore not be released publicly along with other emails from the Democratic White House candidate’s controversial archive.
The State Department designated 22 of her e-mails “top secret” – the first time it has deemed any of Clinton’s e-mails to be classified at a level that can cause “exceptionally grave” damage to national security if disclosed.
The State Department is to release its next batch of emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state later today. Thousands of pages of Clinton’s emails have been marked with a lower level of classification.
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. Twenty two of the presidential candidate’s emails will not be released to the public because they are filled with highly classified material. The emails are classified as confidential and redacted in full because they contain foreign government information and information related to foreign relations and foreign activities. Polls show Clinton and Vermont Sen.
As for the emails released today, they are not entirely without interest.
Republicans were quick to chime in, with Donald Trump tweeting that it was a “disaster” for Clinton and asking, “How can someone with such bad judgement be our next president?”
Congressional Republicans have criticized and investigated Clinton for her use of a private email server for her work as a secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Moreover, the intelligence community has already concluded that the emails in question were classified when they were sent, and they get the final say in the matter. He said that those emails were not classified but would take longer to be released, which is standard for presidential communication.
Prior to the new disclosures, Mrs Clinton seemed to have put the email scandal behind her. Even Senator Bernie Sanders, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, conceded in an October debate that “the American people are sick and exhausted of hearing about your damn emails”. Both said her account was never hacked or compromised.
Clinton’s campaign released a statement on Friday calling for a release of all the emails.
But US intelligence agencies have determined these message contain enough sensitive information that even blacking out whole passages isn’t enough to make them safe for public view. AP has also reported that an email contained information on the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
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If investigators determine that Clinton’s e-mails contain classified information, she potentially could be charged with a felony, said Steven H. Levin, a defence lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has represented those accused of mishandling classified material.
