Twenty-two emails on Hillary Clinton’s private email server that she maintained while acting as Secretary of State contained top-secret classified information, State Department officials told the Associated Press.
The State Department released the latest batch of emails on Friday, but withheld seven email chains, as they contain top-secret information. This is the first time the State Department had declared that Clinton’s emails contained top-secret information. The fully redacted emails will not be published online. “The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told the Associated Press.
“I have said repeatedly that I did not send nor receive classified material, and I’m very confident that when this entire process plays out that will be understood by everyone,” Clinton said last August. “It’s not possible for people to look back now some years in the past and draw different conclusions than the ones that were at work at the time.”
Clinton campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon called the State Department claims “classification run amok.”
This is overclassification run amok. We adamently oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. https://t.co/77s6mtm0JA
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) January 29, 2016
Another Clinton spokesperson tweeted that the information was not classified when it was sent.
@willishl @brianefallon @hillaryclinton Information was not classified at the time it was sent
— Karen “uncommon favor” Finney (@finneyk) January 29, 2016
Clinton is currently under investigation by FBI for her private email server.
H/T Associated Press | Illustration by Max Fleishman
