Just three days before the first votes are cast in the 2016 presidential campaign, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on defense again after the State Department refused to release 22 emails kept on her unsecured server because they contain highly sensitive information.
State Department sources says the 37 pages of emails contain Special Access Program information, some of the most closely guarded secrets in our government.
“This is very telling,” said former U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy, who is now with National Review and is the author most recently of “Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.”
McCarthy says this doesn’t radically change the scope of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s server since we already know more than 1,300 emails contained classified information and have been released with the sensitive parts redacted. Still he believes this highlights the seriousness of Clinton’s actions.
“With respect to these 22 (emails), there is actually a blanket prohibition on disclosure and the reason is that they fear there are other copies of these emails out there,” said McCarthy.
“If they release any part of them, whoever may have those emails will have it confirmed to them that you’re dealing with a Special Access Program national security intelligence matter,” said McCarthy.
He says tipping anyone off to such information could have horrific consequences.
“When that kind of stuff gets revealed and people work backwards or go to school on the information that’s out there, that can result not only in the compromise of important sources of intelligence but also potentially in the killing of people who are spies or covert informants,” said McCarthy.
The Clinton campaign calls the State Department decision “overclassification run amok” and insists bureaucratic infighting over what qualifies as classified is all that’s happening in this story.
McCarthy dismisses that assessment and says this is the latest evidence that ought to give voters great pause this year.
“As a candidate, I think it makes even less appropriate for her to be given an even higher position of public trust,” said McCarthy.
The Obama White House also waded into the Clinton investigation on Friday, with Press Secretary Josh Earnest downplaying the likelihood that Clinton will face any legal trouble for her actions over the server.
“That’s not something I’m worried about,” said Earnest. “Some officials have said she is not the target of the investigation and it does not seem to be the direction in which it is trending.”
McCarthy finds that statement puzzling.
“The political parts of the government, including the White House and the White House staff, shouldn’t know what’s going on in the Justice Department’s investigation,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy also says Earnest is using slippery language by saying Clinton is not the “target” of the investigation. He says in the legal community the term “target” or “subject” is reserved only for situations when a grand jury has begun to investigate a specific person. Since there is no grand jury, McCarthy says Earnest’s statement is meaningless.
He says the FBI should not be rushed by the political calendar but he also says this probe really shouldn’t take that long.
“A classified information case is easier to investigate than other kinds of cases in the sense that the arguments either where they belong or they’re not. They were either transmitted to people who shouldn’t have had them transmitted to them or they weren’t,” said McCarthy.
