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U.S. NEWS A3
Saturday 30 January 2016
APNewsBreak:
Government finds ‘top secret’ info in Clinton emails
BRADLEY KLAPPER by a key intelligence official
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The as concerning so-called
Obama administration
confirmed for the first time “special access programs”
Friday that Hillary Clinton’s
unsecured home server — a highly restricted subset
contained some of the U.S.
government’s most closely of classified material that
guarded secrets, censoring
22 emails with material de- could point to confiden-
manding one of the high-
est levels of classification. tial sources or clandestine
The revelation comes just
three days before the presi- programs like drone strikes
dential nominating sessions
or caucuses in the state of or government eavesdrop-
Iowa in which Clinton is the
front-running Democratic ping.
candidate.
Friday’s release is coming Department officials
at an awkward time for
Clinton. The Iowa caucus wouldn’t describe the sub-
is on Feb. 1, and her main
challenger, Sen. Bernie stance of the emails or say
Sanders, is running neck
and neck with her in the if Clinton sent any herself.
polls there and leads solidly
in the state of New Hamp- They also wouldn’t disclose
shire whose primary elec-
tion is Feb. 9. Clinton still if any of the documents
holds a strong advantage
in national polls. reflected information that
Republicans also have
been trying to slow the mo- was classified at the time of
mentum of her campaign
by playing up Clinton’s transmission, but indicated
email issues, saying she
played by her own rules that the agency’s Diplo-
when it came to national
security. matic Security and Intel-
It’s the potential political
costs that are probably of ligence and Research bu-
more immediate concern
for Clinton. She has strug- reaus have begun looking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a photograph with a member of the audi-
gled in surveys measuring ence after speaking at a rally at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, Jan. 29, 2016.
her perceived trustworthi- into that question.
ness, and an active federal (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
investigation, especially “The documents are being
one buoyed by evidence
that top secret material upgraded at the request
coursed through her ac-
count, could negate one of the intelligence commu-
of her main selling points
for becoming commander nity because they contain
in chief: Her national secu-
rity resume. a category of top secret
The State Department will
release its next batch of information,” State Depart-
emails from Clinton’s time
as secretary of state later ment spokesman John Kir-
Friday. But The Associated
Press has learned seven by told the AP, describing
email chains are being
withheld in full because the decision to withhold
they contain information
deemed to be “top se- documents in full as “not
cret.”
The 37 pages include mes- unusual.” That means they
sages recently described
won’t be published online
with the rest of the docu-
ments, even with blacked-
out boxes.
Clinton has insisted she
never sent or received in-
formation on her personal
email account that was
classified at the time. No
emails released so far were
stamped “CLASSIFIED” or
“TOP SECRET,” but review-
ers previously had desig-
nated more than 1,000
messages at lower classifi-
cation levels for public re-
lease.
For those that Clinton only
read, and didn’t write or
forward, she still would
have been required to re-
port classification slippages
that she recognized. But
without classification mark-
ings, that may have been
difficult, especially if the in-
formation was in the public
domain.
Kirby said the State De-
partment’s focus as part
of the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act review of Clinton’s
emails was on “whether
they need to be classified
today.”q
