NEW YORK: Although a few dozen of Hillary Clinton’s publicly released work emails from her time as secretary of state are now stamped “Classified”, the US State Department, and Clinton herself, have maintained these classifications are new.
But the dates for declassification marked by the department on those emails raise questions about the assertion that none of the information should have been handled as classified when it first traversed Clinton’s private, home email server.
The declassify dates suggest either that the department did not follow standard government classification regulations, or that it might believe that the information in at least 30 email threads reviewed by Reuters was in fact classified on the original day Clinton sent or received it.
Clinton, front-runner to be the Democratic nominee in next year’s White House election, has repeatedly said she did not handle information on her private email account that was classified at the time. The State Department has stood behind its former boss, saying it has seen no proof to the contrary.
Current and former White House officials with responsibility for the government’s classified information regime interviewed by Reuters were puzzled at how the declassification dates aligned with the State Department’s public assertions.
“The State Department’s blowing smoke here,” J William Leonard, a former director of the US government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), said in a telephone interview. “It’s clear from the declassification date — that’s their tacit acknowledgement this stuff was classified from day one.”
The US government prohibits the sending of classified information outside secure networks. Clinton’s campaign has been dogged by allegations she may have mishandled sensitive information by using a private email address, run from a server in her home, as secretary of state.
According to a presidential executive order, a government official classifying something for the first time must pick a declassification date at least 10 years “from the date of the original decision,” so long as there is no earlier moment when the information loses its sensitivity.
The State Department has made public about 3,500 of the 30,000 or so work emails Clinton handed over to the department late last year. It has redacted and stamped a few dozen of them as “Classified.”
In the 30 such email threads examined by Reuters, which all date from 2009, the State Department says all the information was classified for the first time on either June 30 or July 30 this year.
REUTERS
NEW YORK: Although a few dozen of Hillary Clinton’s publicly released work emails from her time as secretary of state are now stamped “Classified”, the US State Department, and Clinton herself, have maintained these classifications are new.
But the dates for declassification marked by the department on those emails raise questions about the assertion that none of the information should have been handled as classified when it first traversed Clinton’s private, home email server.
The declassify dates suggest either that the department did not follow standard government classification regulations, or that it might believe that the information in at least 30 email threads reviewed by Reuters was in fact classified on the original day Clinton sent or received it.
Clinton, front-runner to be the Democratic nominee in next year’s White House election, has repeatedly said she did not handle information on her private email account that was classified at the time. The State Department has stood behind its former boss, saying it has seen no proof to the contrary.
Current and former White House officials with responsibility for the government’s classified information regime interviewed by Reuters were puzzled at how the declassification dates aligned with the State Department’s public assertions.
“The State Department’s blowing smoke here,” J William Leonard, a former director of the US government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), said in a telephone interview. “It’s clear from the declassification date — that’s their tacit acknowledgement this stuff was classified from day one.”
The US government prohibits the sending of classified information outside secure networks. Clinton’s campaign has been dogged by allegations she may have mishandled sensitive information by using a private email address, run from a server in her home, as secretary of state.
According to a presidential executive order, a government official classifying something for the first time must pick a declassification date at least 10 years “from the date of the original decision,” so long as there is no earlier moment when the information loses its sensitivity.
The State Department has made public about 3,500 of the 30,000 or so work emails Clinton handed over to the department late last year. It has redacted and stamped a few dozen of them as “Classified.”
In the 30 such email threads examined by Reuters, which all date from 2009, the State Department says all the information was classified for the first time on either June 30 or July 30 this year.
REUTERS
