Emails found on Hillary Clinton’s private server contained information classified at a special level beyond the standard “top secret,” according to a letter that the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general sent to lawmakers.
The scandal surrounding Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State has carried on for nearly a full year. Her campaign has insisted that nothing she sent or received was classified at the time she handled it. Yet anonymous senior intelligence officials said in September that Clinton’s emails contained highly classified material when she received them. The inspector general for the intelligence community, I. Charles McCullough III, said that two emails on Clinton’s server contained top-secret information. The Clinton campaign disputed these reports.
The latest letter from McCullough alleges that some information in Clinton’s emails was deemed “top secret/SAP,” a category for secret intelligence programs (also known as “special access programs”) run by the Pentagon and CIA.
The investigation into Clinton’s email use has given opponents of her presidential campaign a sharp weapon to wield against her.
Last year, reports suggested that hackers had attempted to breach Clinton’s email server in 2011. The attacks are not believed to have been successful.