Clinton Transmitted Classified Information to Her Lawyers

Family Security Matters

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY

 

What was their security-clearance level?  

What was the legal rationale under which Hillary Clinton quite intentionally shared classified information with her lawyers, including David Kendall, Cheryl Mills, and Heather Samuelson?

As I outlined in last weekend’s column, we know that Clinton’s e-mails were replete with classified information. According to the FBI, the classified e-mails included intelligence graded at the most closely guarded level: eight top-secret e-mails, and seven designated as “special access program” (SAP) information. (While FBI director James Comey’s presentation understandably left this vague, the likelihood is that seven of the eight top-secret e-mails are SAP.) Under President Bill Clinton’s 1995 executive order, top-secret intelligence is information the mishandling of which “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” The SAP designation is added when the unauthorized disclosure of intelligence could compromise critical intelligence-gathering methods or imperil the lives of intelligence sources.

That is why access to this information is so tightly restricted, and its unauthorized disclosure is routinely prosecuted.

With that as our backdrop, let’s get two things straight.

Federal Judge Declares State Department Will “Answer For” Any Destruction of Clinton Emails

JUDICIAL WATCH

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal judge warned the State Department that it will “have to answer for” any destruction of Hillary Clinton email records.  U. S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras made the statement at a July 9, 2015 status conference concerning a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for records about the State Department vetting of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s potential conflicts of interest (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00688)).  The transcript of the July 9 court hearing is available here.

At the hearing, attorney Chris Fedeli pressed Judicial Watch’s concerns about the preservation of records, especially email records that were not part of the 55,000 pages of records turned over by Mrs. Clinton to the State Department late last year.

In response, Judge Contreras said he was also “concerned” about the preservation of these records:

Records show Clinton withheld emails about oil, terrorism

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaks at a Jefferson Jackson event hosted by the Democratic Party of Virginia at George Mason University’s Patriot Center, in Fairfax, Va., Friday, June 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Washington Examiner

Hillary Clinton withheld Benghazi-related emails from the State Department that detailed her knowledge of the scramble for oil contracts in Libya and the shortcomings of the NATO-led military intervention for which she advocated.

Clinton removed specific portions of other emails she sent to State, suggesting the messages were screened closely enough to determine which paragraphs were unfit to be seen by the public.

For example, one email Clinton kept from the State Department indicates Libyan leaders were “well aware” of which “major oil companies and international banks” supported them during the rebellion, information they would “factor into decisions” about about who would be given access to the country’s rich oil reserves.

The email, which Clinton subsequently scrubbed from her server, indicated Clinton was aware that involvement in the controversial conflict could have a significant financial benefit to firms that were friendly to the Libyan rebels.