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FBI going directly to intel agencies in Clinton email probe |
Hillary Clinton’s email headaches grew Friday as the State Department
confirmed several emails under review contain information too “top
secret” to release in any form – while at the same time delaying the
release of thousands of other pages.
The department released roughly 1,700 pages of emails
Friday evening. But the latest developments fueled Republican
allegations – just three days before the Iowa caucuses – that Clinton
was “irresponsible” in her email use, and that the department she used
to lead is still trying to protect her by dragging out the process until
after the start of primary contests.
Fox News first reported earlier Friday that some emails were “too damaging” to national security to release.
The State Department formally announced Friday
afternoon that seven email chains, found in 22 documents, will be
withheld “in full” because they, in fact, contain “Top Secret”
information. In addition, a spokesman said another 18 emails between
President Obama and Clinton will be withheld for now – but they are “not
classified” and will be released eventually.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon pushed back, though, criticizing the intelligence community for flagging those emails.
"We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the
release of these emails,” he said in a statement. "This appears to be
over-classification run amok. We will pursue all appropriate avenues to
see that her emails are released in a manner consistent with her call
last year."
The more than 1,000 pages that were released, though, are a fraction of the total remaining number.
Among the 1,670 pages released Friday evening, 242 emails were upgraded to classified; 11 of which were considered 'secret'.
One email from January 2013 included intelligence
from three other government agencies, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency. The NRO and NGA are both satellite and mapping agencies, with
which the State Department does not have jurisdiction over
classification of information.
The agency that generates the intelligence, owns the information, and therefore has final say on classification.
The latest batch of released emails also contained a
few examples of some State Department employees not understanding the
classification system and its protocols.
On April 25, 2012 Clifford Hart, then U.S. special
envoy for six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, sent an
email that reads, "sensitive but unclassified" but is then heavily
redacted and classified.
In a court filing Thursday night, the State
Department said it would not make the Jan. 29 release deadline -- and
about 7,000 pages still needed to be sent out for “interagency
consultation.” The agency acknowledged these pages had been “missed” and
not sent out for review earlier.
The filing drew Republican complaints.
“The notion that a months-long process could be hit
with 11th hour delays reeks of political favoritism designed to hide the
ball from voters on the eve of early state voting,” Republican National
Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “Voters deserve
to know the facts before they cast their ballots, not after.”
The Iowa caucuses are Monday, followed by the New
Hampshire primary a week after that, and Clinton is locked in a tight
race for the Democratic presidential nomination with Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders. The first four contests will be over by the end of February.
The department, though, in part tried to blame the blizzard for the delay.
“Since discovering its oversight, State has moved
diligently to process the documents and send them to the appropriate
agencies for review, a process that was interrupted by the blizzard that
struck Washington, D.C. over the weekend,” the agency noted in the
filing, which asked for a 30-day extension.
The agency has produced some 43,000 pages of emails
in last several months. There were two dumps totaling 6,000 in January.
While hundreds of these documents were retroactively classified, Fox
News first reported that this included emails classified at a level
beyond “top secret.”
A Jan. 14 letter from Intelligence Community
Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III to senior lawmakers said a
review identified “several dozen” additional classified emails --
including specific intelligence from “special access programs (SAP),”
which indicates a level higher than “top secret.”
In an interview with NPR, Clinton claimed the latest
IG finding doesn’t change anything and suggested it was politically
motivated. She has claimed that the emails found on her private server
and email were “innocuous” and never classified at the time.
But after the State Department confirmed some emails
are so secret they’re being withheld in full, Republicans seized on the
announcement.
“We now know Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal
email account during her tenure at the State Department wasn’t just
negligent, it was completely dangerous,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said
in a statement. “To put our country in danger for personal convenience
is arrogant and irresponsible — and it’s illegal.
She should face
the same consequences that any federal employee who behaved similarly
would face, including criminal prosecution.”
An FBI investigation remains underway into Clinton’s email practices.
Asked Friday whether Clinton would not be indicted,
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it does not appear the
investigation is headed in that direction.
But a law enforcement source close to the DOJ
investigation pushed back on those remarks, telling Fox News the
investigation is still very much ongoing – and a decision has not been
made on the matter one way or the other.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman John Kirby
reiterated Friday that the 22 documents in question were “not marked
classified at the time they were sent.”
But he said the State Department will look at “whether they were classified at the time they were sent.”
He said: “These emails will be denied in full,
meaning they will not be produced online on our FOIA website. In
response to a FOIA request, it is not unusual to deny or withhold a
document in full. We are not going to speak to the content of these
documents.”