The latest State Department release of emails Hillary Clinton turned over from her private server includes some 7,800 emails and brings the total number deemed classified to a rather auspicious number. From ABC News :
"A State Department official tells ABC News that in this release alone 328 documents were upgraded to a classified level, meaning that they were redacted and are unavailable for public review. So far 999 have been graded as classified."
Emphasis added. Long gone are the days when Clinton could stand before reporters and claim there was no classified information on her private, unsecured email server . In all likelihood, the next release of emails will push the number of messages with classified info over the 1,000 mark. Think about that: She said there were no such messages, and at the current rate the number would end up at more than 1,500. That's an astounding degree of difference from what Clinton repeatedly told the public as this story first emerged. It is a display of brazen dishonesty that is unmatched in this election campaign by any other candidate in either major party.
It's also laughably improbable that none of those hundreds and hundreds of emails contained information that was obviously classified at the time she saw them. While over-classification of information may be an endemic problem in the U.S. government, it's almost certain that at least some of the information was "born classified" and it was Clinton's responsibility to a) know that and b) safeguard the information appropriately. It doesn't really matter which of those responsibilities she failed to fulfill. Either was an enormous mistake.
One more time, these are the questions to keep in mind when deciding whether this is a "real" issue:
- Was classified information on her personal, private server? (Answer: Yes.)
- Was her personal, private server protected appropriately? (Answer: No.)
- Do these facts raise questions about her judgment? (Answer: In my view, and that of voters surveyed by opinion pollsters, yes.)
- Has she given a sufficient answer for handling things this way? (Answer: No, because her answers keep changing as they're undermined by the facts.)
- Is she hiding something? (Answer: TBD.)
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