Key Clinton emails did not contain highly classified secrets, inquiry finds

[riversedge]

Source: Politico



11/06/15 01:40 PM EST

By Josh Gerstein

11/06/15 01:40 PM EST

The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top secret information, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

The determination came from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office and concluded that the two emails did not include highly classified intelligence secrets. Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an on-going FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email set-up.

Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III made the claim that two of the emails contained top secret information, the State Department publicly stated its disagreement and asked Clapper’s office to referee the dispute. Now, that disagreement has been resolved in State’s favor, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Intelligence officials claimed one email in Clinton’s account was classified because it contained information from a top secret intelligence community “product” or report, but a further review determined that the report was not issued until several days after the email in question was written, the source said.......................

A top expert in classification procedures called the development " an astonishing turn of events."
20150918_carly_fiorina_ap_1160.jpg



"It's not just a mistake," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. "It was a transformative event in the presidential campaign to this point. It had a potential to derail Clinton's presidential candidacy."...............



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary-clinton-email-no-highly-classified-215599#ixzz3qk88VYzh

---

Another ginned up huddle surpassed. Congrats to Hillary and her team.


Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. | AP Photo

[Bubzer]

1. More gamesmanship. There are no "highly classified" secrets in the government.

That's not how classification works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information

[pnwmom]

19. According to this report , the emails weren't based on ANY classified info. This has nothing

to do with the level of secrecy.

[Bubzer]

28. Thats only true if you omit the last few paragraphs of the article.

"The process is ongoing and is likely to be a lengthy one due to the volume of material and the litigation aspects," said the official, who asked not be named.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday he was unaware of any resolution of the classification issue regarding the messages McCullough's office said had been deemed "top secret."

"As far as I know we’ve received no final decision by the intelligence community with respect to these two emails," Kirby said at a daily briefing for reporters. "As far as we know, that process is ongoing."

[pnwmom]

29. None of that says any of the info was classified.

The most we've heard at all is that some items might have been retroactively classified, which is a bullshit practice.

And the House Committee has received and passed on the exact same emails, so if she did anything wrong, so did they.

[Bubzer]

36. Retroactive classification is a common and necessary practice.

Retroactive classification doesn't retroactively cause violations, which is what I think you're concerned about... so Hillary would be fine on that front. That said, my point wasn't that classified documents had been revealed...but that the investigation is far from concluded, so the OP is untrue because the inquiry is far from complete.

[daybranch]

31. Yes, it is gamesmanship to further the perceived victimization of not so innocent Hillary, but

there are many levels of highly classified materials including top secret, compartmentalized top secret, Q clearances involving nuclear materials, and many more. But release of information with lower level clearance such as confidential, or no foreign dissemination, or just classified secret is a violation of our laws and is expected inn some way to harm the interests of our nation by its release. So as long as it was classified, low level or or not, it is a violation of law and Hillary should face the same or greater punishment a lower ranking civil servant would. This is beginning to look more and more like an abuse of power rather than just disrespect for laws and regulations. Certainly poor and slow government systems should not be used as an excuse to violate the laws. Hillary should be no better than anyone else under the law.This is starting to sound a bit like the covering statements made to shield Nixon.

[liberal N proud]

2. Can't get her on Benghazi, can't get her on email - damn, they will just have to rinse and repeat

Just like Obamacare, the fucking republicans don't know when they are beat.

[Kingofalldems]

3. Hillary haters hating this one.

[mcar]

22. They will try to spin it to keep it alive

But they will fail.

[SunSeeker]

4. So much for the "FBI investigation" Hillary haters had hoped would take her down.

[jeff47]

5. You're a little early with the champagne.

The two emails are part of a set of four emails McCullough's investigators flagged after obtaining access earlier this year to a sample of 40 emails among the 30,000 Clinton stored on a private server and provided to her former agency last December. "My office's limited sampling of 40 of the emails revealed four contained classified information that should have been marked and handled at the SECRET level," McCullough wrote to lawmakers on July 23.

Still more to go.

[7962]

6. Corks get popped early all the time around here!

Happens all the time.

[Bubzer]

10. Adding to that;

However, the classification of that email as secret did not set off the scramble that began in late July when the intelligence inspector general flagged the set of four from the sample of 40. The flagging of those four emails by the ICIG led to a formal referral to the FBI of a potential counterintelligence breach.

Within days, the FBI contacted Kendall asking him to turn over the thumb drive, which he did in early August. On July 31, Kennedy also sent urgent letters to lawyers for two top Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, asking that all the federal records in their possession be immediately returned to the government, along with all copies.

FBI Director James Comey has since confirmed his agency is conducting a review of the matter. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment when asked what impact the classification developments would have on the agency's ongoing probe.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary-clinton-email-no-highly-classified-215599#ixzz3qkPVW5GS

[jeff47]

12. Nope. I just bothered to read the article.

Try it! You'll find out things!

[riversedge]

32. One day at a time....

[wolfie001]

7. Thanks for raising her poll numbers!!!

Stupid republiturds!!!!

[Botany]

8. But what about Hillary's email server?

[truthisfreedom]

9. Ellipses are limited to three dots.

You should divide paragraphs differently.

[MADem]

26. And the GOP going after HRC should have picked a different target, because this attempt

at a political execution missed by a country mile .....................................................

[SusanCalvin]

14. I never though there was any wrongdoing.

My guess as to what happened is she got sick of trying to deal with an IT department that was behind the times. I base that on absolutely nothing except my experiences in trying to get my job done in spite of the IT department.

[SunSeeker]

30. And government agency IT departments are utterly understaffed and resources starved.

They are in way worse shape than private companies' IT departments in my experience.

[daybranch]

15. she broke the rules and fortunately the worst did not happen

But revealing secret information of any classification is still a crime. saying she did not reveal highly classified information is like saying your daughter is just a little bit pregnant. She broke the rules and should face the penalties just like any federal worker would have to do. Yes I know, she was just too busy to follow the rules and the equipment is slow, so what? She is not taking responsibility yet. if she revealed secret information, she should, like the rest of us, pay the penalty.

[Evergreen Emerald]

16. She broke no rules. Don't let facts get in the way ..Is that you Karl?

[Cha]

18. Really. they need to get informed and quite repeating rwinger soundbytes.

[Cha]

17. No, Hillary didn't break any rules. Don't post misinformation just bc you don't know what's going

on.

[pnwmom]

20. She revealed no secret information and she broke no rules. Your reading skills leave something

to be desired.

According to this report, her emails did not contain classified information. Someone mistakenly thought they had been based on a classified report, but they weren't. They were produced from non-classified sources.

[riversedge]

23. ha ha.

[MADem]

27. No, she didn't. There were no "rules" at State when she was in charge.

Good grief, the stretching, the invention, the repetition of wingnut memes, it's pathetic. You've no grasp of the situation, and you are just Making Shit Up as you go along, so badly you want the GOP narrative to be true.

This isn't like saying your daughter is a little bit pregnant. It's like saying your daughter ate too much ice cream, got a bit fat, and the nosy, wingnut, lying, look-down-their-nose assholes next door, noting her weight gain, are falsely ACCUSING her of being pregnant.

At least TRY to pretend to follow along. At least have an awareness of what those "rules" you're making up actually were.

smh.

[riversedge]

34. Can't you read??

[MADem]

21. So, if one "retreats from claims" that is a sweet way of saying "We're not gonna lie about this

anymore?"

Waste of taxpayer money and time--all for a blatant witch hunt.

What bums!

[riversedge]

24. srsly, could this day get ANY WORSE for Fox News?

Eric Boehlert ?@EricBoehlert 6h6 hours ago

Eric Boehlert Retweeted POLITICO

srsly, could this day get ANY WORSE for Fox News?

[libodem]

25. Good

Now, can they shut up?

[riversedge]

33. Kick for the morning

[Francois9]

35. The word "classified" is not used in the law Hillary might have broken.

Click on the link to see the whole thing. "Classified" is not in there. The key phrase is "relating to the national defense."

18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,

(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or

(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

[riversedge]

37. And a reminder of the rold that NYT and Fox played in this Hillary smear.....

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/11/06/us-intelligence-chief-reportedly-debunks-media/206683


U.S. Intelligence Chief Reportedly Debunks Media Obsession That Clinton's Email Contained "Highly Classified Secrets"
Blog ››› November 6, 2015 3:12 PM EST ››› MATT GERTZ


The office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has reportedly concluded that two emails received by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not contain top secret information, a reversal from the Intelligence Community inspector general's prior claim that they did, according to a Politico report. Media had previously used the notion that the two emails were highly classified to suggest that Clinton or her aides had engaged in criminal behavior.

In July, the New York Times published an article -- which it subsequently had to correct twice -- about a security referral the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IG IC) made to the executive branch about whether there was any classified material on Clinton's email account during her time as secretary of state. The IG IC highlighted four allegedly classified emails and subsequently stated that two of those four emails contained "top secret" information. The State Department disagreed about whether the material in the emails was actually highly classified. As Politico is now reporting, "that disagreement has been resolved in State's favor" and the previous claim that the emails contained top secret information is wrong.

Despite the original disagreement between the two federal agencies, Fox News initially responded by running with speculation from an anonymous State Department official that aides to Hillary Clinton had "stripped" the classification markings from emails that she received in her private email server, and claiming that even if the emails hadn't been marked classified, Clinton should have known they contained highly classified information.

But Politico reported on November 6 that the office of the Director of National Intelligence has now overruled the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community's prior conclusion that two emails received by Clinton contained highly classified information. As Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists explained to Politico, this "mistake" is nothing short than "astonishing" because "t was a transformative event in the presidential campaign to this point. It had a potential to derail Clinton's presidential candidacy." From the article..............

[cosmicone]

38. kick n/t