I have two questions about the email controversy

[paulthompson]

75. response

If you're truly interested in learning, try reading the timeline.

Here's a relevant entry:

July 24, 2015: Many of Clinton's emails contained classified information when they were sent, not just retroactively. Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick issue a joint statement about their inquiry into Clinton's emails. The statement says that out of a random sample of 40 of Clinton's emails, Linick found four emails containing information that should have been classified at the time they were sent. "These emails were not retroactively classified by the State Department; rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to [Intelligence Community] classification officials, that information remains classified today. This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system." (US Department of State, 7/24/2015)

Note that quote from the inspector general of Clinton's own department. Note that both inspectors general were appointed by Obama.

This whole notion of classified information needing to be marked with the word "classified" at the time it is sent is a red herring. As I said elsewhere, certain information is obviously classified by its very nature. For instance, as secretary of state, Clinton was the US's chief diplomat. Surely she knew that any communication with foreign diplomats was classified, no matter what the content was. That's why people talk about some information being "born classified." It's so obviously classified that to mark it such or not is irrelevant.

Most of Clinton's 2,000 classified emails were like that, because they generally were talking about foreign diplomacy and that is classified by its very nature. There are existing executive orders that clearly spell these rules out.

Let's say Clinton called up the head of NATO to talk about the war in Libya. Nobody should have to tell Clinton that the contents of that call is classified. She should obviously know that, and that's what the rules specify. Yet she talked about that phone call in an email. If you look at that email about the NATO call now, all but a few words of it is redacted at the "secret" level, which is the level below "top secret." (I'm using that because it's a real example.) Again, nobody should have needed to tell her that info was classified. As former Attorney General Mukasey has said, it should have been obvious even to a "low-grade moron."