WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration settled a long-running dispute over a sensitive email on Hillary Clinton’s private account, as intelligence agencies classified part of an exchange on North Korea’s nuclear program for containing “secret” information, but no “top secret” material as previously claimed.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the message will be published Monday in a batch of nearly 4,000 documents, finishing the release of Clinton’s work emails from her time as secretary of state. A portion will be censored and classified at the lower, secret level, he said. The intelligence community had argued for months that the email included material at the highest classification level.
“Based on subsequent review, the intelligence community revisited its earlier assessment,” Kirby told reporters. He added: “The original assessment was not correct and the document does not contain top secret information.”
The announcement comes a day before Clinton competes in 11 Democratic primary contests. She is the front-runner to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
The North Korea email is one of two that Charles I. McCullough, lead auditor for U.S. intelligence agencies, identified last year as particularly problematic. The other concerned the CIA’s drone program and led to officials classifying 22 emails from Clinton’s private account last month as “top secret.” They were withheld from publication.
No emails Clinton wrote or received were marked as classified at the time of transmission, whichClinton has repeatedly cited in her own defense. But some 1,800 emails have since been subsequently classified at some level so far.
Kirby stressed that the North Korea exchange had only been “provisionally” upgraded in classification, suggesting the department doesn’t even fully accept the lesser finding. Officials faced a Monday deadline set by a federal judge to release the final documents from the private server Clintonexclusively used while in government.
“The information available to diplomats and the judgments they form do not necessarily need to be classified just because there are parallel intelligence sources,” Kirby said.
He also said an unclassified email between Clinton and President Barack Obama would be withheld from publication Monday. The department held back 18 such messages last month to protect the president’s ability to receive advice from his aides, saying they’d be released eventually like other presidential records.
Another email on an unidentified law enforcement matter will be withheld. Kirby said that one also is unclassified.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Back to Ben Ghazi and Foster, Vince I reckon.
Plus, and this one is huge, It’s been uncovered that Hillary has been using, OMG, teleprompters, at a few events. That means that there is ‘prompting’ happening and who knows what top secret shit is on those prompters.
Full investigation ending in Republican Party faceplant now! Doh!
fox news coverage will surely report the news that none of the remaining emails released were marked top secret. you know, being fair and balanced and all. well, NO!
fux: LATEST NEWS
EXCLUSIVE Senior Clinton aide maintained top secret clearance amid email probe, letters show
This process is still lousy with Big Petty, what with the FBI & WH having to pressure the g.d. s.o.b.'ing “U.S. intel community” (to wit Brennan World, who, IMO, has totally screwed himself from continuing on in his current role for very long once president HRC is sworn in … putz) just to get down to ‘secret vin tres ordinaire et pedestrian’ a small doggy bag of predigested nothingburger that’s already been out there in public or at least available for anyone with half a brain and any passing interest in doing so to sift thru.
From what I’ve been led to believe - by sources just beyond the field where this stupid Easter egg shell hunt has been taking place - it appears more than possible that a big part of the problem here derived from ‘well-intentioned’ pro-HRC types who figured rendering as much as possible “top secret” would somehow work to the advantage of her public image. It’s a reminder of what her 2008 presidential campaign suffered from: too many cooks all purporting be in her main favor all throwing their weight around with each other.
This won’t stop Drudge or Fox or anyone in the wingosphere from keeping the volume of the drums beating on this up to 11 thru the November election, and there’s no reason to think we’ll ever ever ever hear the end of her damn e-mails.