During her press conference earlier this week, Hillary Clinton said she had “her counsel” review the 60,000 or so pages of email that were on the private server she used as Secretary of State. Several times, she referred to her counsel as “they.” Thus, more than one lawyer reviewed her email trove. Presumably, the work was done by a team.
Did the reviewing lawyers have security clearance? It seems unlikely.
Accordingly, if any of Hillary’s emails contained classified information, Clinton likely shared that information with individuals who were not authorized to see it. And even if none of her emails contained classified information, it would have been reckless for her to share the emails with individuals lacking security clearance, since she could not be certain in advance that there was no “stray” classified information in the 60,000 pages under review.
Clinton and her counsel decided to delete roughly half of the email pages they reviewed. We probably will never know whether these pages contained classified information.
However, roughly 30,000 pages weren’t destroyed. If they contain classified information, and if her lawyers lacked security clearance, then it will be clear that Clinton improperly shared classified information.
Another crime could then be added to the list of those she likely committed.
UPDATE: A reader who has experience with these matters tells me that there are probably no “classified” emails on Clinton’s server because there is no way for them to get there. According to the reader, you cannot produce something labeled “classified” on an unclassified system or send email from a classified system to an unclassified one.
The reader is confident, however, that much of what Clinton discussed via email involved information that was (or should have been) classified) — things like the bin Laden operation, Afghanistan, China, etc.
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