The State Department said Friday that 22 emails sent through Hillary Clinton’s private computer server contained information so highly classified that they would not be made public. It was the first time the Obama administration had confirmed the existence of “top secret” material in her personal email account.
The department announced that 18 emails exchanged between Clinton and President Barack Obama would also be withheld, citing the longstanding practice of preserving presidential communications for future release. The department’s spokesman, John Kirby, said that those exchanges did not involve classified information.
The disclosure of the top secret emails, which came three days before Iowans vote in the first-in-the-nation caucuses, is certain to fuel the political debate over the use of a private, unclassified computer server by Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate.
The State Department said it had “upgraded” the classification of the emails at the request of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Kirby said that none of the emails had been marked at any level of classification at the time they were sent through Clinton’s computer server, which she kept in her home.
Neither Kirby nor other officials would discuss the emails now being withheld, but the classified emails include those cited in a letter sent to the Senate on Jan. 14 by the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III.
McCollough wrote
that “several dozen emails” contained classified information, including some now determined to contain information at the “top secret/SAP” level. That designation refers to “special access programs,” which are among the government’s most closely guarded secrets.
It was not clear whether those emails were written by Clinton or, as has been more often the case with the thousands of emails released so far, were messages written by other State Department officials and forwarded by her closest aides.
Officials at the State Department have said that the “upgrading” of the classification of Clinton’s emails has been routine. Kirby said Friday that the classification review was “focused on whether they need to be classified today.”
Clinton’s campaign responded forcefully, saying that the process of reviewing the emails “appears to be over-classification run amok.” A spokesman, Brian Fallon, said that all of the emails should be released.
“We understand that these emails were likely originated on the State Department’s unclassified system before they were ever shared with Secretary Clinton, and they have remained on the department’s unclassified system for years,” Fallon said.
The announcement came as the State Department prepared to release another set of about 1,000 emails Friday night. Friday was supposed to be the deadline for releasing all of the 33,000 emails from the server, but officials have appealed for an extension of the deadline.
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