In New York’s Observer, John Schindler has a good column summarizing the mind-boggling story of Hillary’s Clinton’s unsecured private server for her official business as Secretary of State. To borrow a question, what difference at this point does it make? Clinton’s conduct implicates numerous criminal statutes, but the heart of the story is something like this:
Regardless of whether Ms. Clinton was engaged in political corruption, she unquestionably cast aside security as Secretary of State. She can’t quite keep her story straight on why that was, and she is at pains to deny that there is any real issue here at all, suggesting that it’s just another right-wing propaganda ploy. Ms. Clinton is veering hazardously close to her infamous “What difference at this point does it make?” claim, which she touted about the 2012 Benghazi attack.Yet, as any seasoned intelligence professional will tell you, it matters a great deal—just not in ways visible to the American public. The communications of America’s top diplomat are closely monitored by dozens of foreign spy services, and anything sent out unencrypted, as Ms. Clinton’s email was, should be assumed to be read by numerous countries, including some who are not our friends.John Kerry, her successor at Foggy Bottom, admitted that Russia and China are almost certainly reading his unclassified emails. Bob Gates, Obama’s first defense secretary, recently asserted it’s very likely that Russia, China, and Iran were inside Ms. Clinton’s homebrew email server. Mr. Gates is a career intelligence officer who served as CIA director, and he simply stated what any espionage professional knows.Worse, access to Ms. Clinton’s personal email likely gave foreign spy agencies hints on how to crack into more sensitive information systems.To take just the Russians: their plus-sized embassy in Washington, D.C. is conveniently located on a hill overlooking the city, with an impressive antenna field on its roof aimed downtown. That is where Ms. Clinton’s “unclassified” emails went. The Russians care so much about State Department information they’ve been caught planting bugs inside a conference room just down the hall from the Secretary of State’s office. “Of course the SVR got it all,” explained a high-ranking former KGB officer to me about EmailGate (the SVR is the post-Soviet successor to the KGB’s foreign intelligence arm). “I don’t know if we’re as good as we were in my time,” he added, “but even half-drunk the SVR could get those emails, they probably couldn’t believe how easy Hillary made it for them.”Any foreign intelligence service reading Ms. Clinton’s emails would know a great deal they’re not supposed to about American diplomacy, including classified information: readouts from sensitive meetings, secret U.S. positions on high-stakes negotiations, details of interaction between the State Department and other U.S. agencies including the White House. This would be a veritable intelligence goldmine to our enemies. Worse, access to Ms. Clinton’s personal email likely gave foreign spy agencies hints on how to crack into more sensitive information systems….
Schindler’s column provides a useful review of the story to date with many links. Interested readers can read the whole thing here.
The State Department is releasing the latest trove of Hillary Clinton emails today, and theAssociated Press reports that seven email chains are being withheld entirely from production (as opposed to being produced in redacted form) because they are classified as Top Secret:
The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails with material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. …Department officials also said the agency’s Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus will investigate whether any of the information was classified at the time of transmission, going to the heart of one of Clinton’s primary defenses of her email practices. …But The Associated Press has learned seven email chains are being withheld in full from the Friday release because they contain information deemed to be “top secret.” The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called “special access programs” — a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping.“The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP, describing the decision to withhold documents in full as “not unusual.”
No, it isn’t unusual. What is unusual is that these Top Secret documents came from Hillary Clinton’s home brew server, contrary to federal law and State Department rules.
Hillary’s only defense, as best as I can tell, is that none of the emails on her server were stamped “classified,” “Top Secret,” or whatever. This could be because those that were stamped were deleted before the emails were turned over to the State Department. In any event, her defense is irrelevant: both the federal law and the State Department regulation relate to documents that are in fact classified, not just those that are so stamped. Federal employees can’t circumvent the law by failing to stamp the documents they create or receive. And Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was one of those specifically charged with knowledge of what documents should be, and are, classified.
PAUL adds: Hillary Clinton has argued for months that there is a dispute between the intelligence community and the State Department as to the sensitivity of documents on her server. The State Department’s confirmation that documents on her server were “Top Secret” undercuts this defense.
The comment of State Department flack John Kirby that the documents “are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information” represents State throwing in the towel in this dispute, it seems to me, although Kirby does his best to make it seem like an accommodation, rather than a concession.
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