Documents: FBI urged to reclassify a Clinton email
Classification change was never made, but critics seize on it.
A top State Department official tried to pressure the FBI to change its determination that at least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server contained classified content, prompting discussion of a possible trade to resolve the issue, two FBI employees told colleagues investigating Clinton’s use of a private server last year.
One FBI official conceded that he told the State Department employee he would “look into” changing the classification of a Clinton email if the official would lend his authority to an FBI request to increase its personnel in Iraq, according to documents released by the bureau Monday.
Another bureau official described the arrangement as a “quid pro quo” and said he believed that the State Department official, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, was interested in “minimizing the classified nature of the Clinton emails in order to protect State interests and those of Clinton,” the documents say.
No tangible swap ever came to pass. The email was classified in accordance with the FBI’s original wishes, and the bureau was not given any additional personnel in Iraq. Both the FBI and the State Department denied that a quid pro quo ever existed.
Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state
has dogged the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign and has proved to be an issue that resonates with voters. The new documents could add to perceptions among voters that Clinton is not trustworthy, and they come with the final presidential debate days away and the election in just a few weeks. The revelation of possible back room dealing was immediately seized on by her critics.
In a video statement posted to his Twitter page Monday, Republican nominee Donald Trump said: “This is very big, and frankly, it’s unbelievable. What was just found out is that the Department of Justice, the State Department, and the FBI colluded, got together, to make Hillary Clinton look less guilty, and look a lot better than she looks. This is one of the big breaking stories of our time, in my opinion. This shows corruption at the highest level, and we can’t let it happen as American citizens.”
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in a written statement: “It is well known that there was strong disagreement among various government agencies about the decisions to retroactively classify certain material in emails sent to Secretary Clinton. Agencies that took issue with this overclassification did so based on their own beliefs, and we were not part of these disagreements that played out inside the government.”
The FBI said in a statement that it had referred the matter to the “appropriate officials for review.” The agency did not respond to a message seeking comment on who those officials are. The official at the center of the matter — who is not named in the documents — has since retired, the bureau said.
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to bring charges against Clinton for mishandling classified information while she was secretary of state, and FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly and forcefully defended that decision. He also has pushed the bureau to be unusually transparent in showing the public how the probe was handled.
The documents released Monday include summaries of more than three dozen interviews with technology company employees, FBI agents and Diplomatic Security officers who worked with Clinton.
According to the documents released Monday, Michael Steinbach, who heads the FBI’s national security branch, told Kennedy the bureau would not change its classification decision, but it would also not discuss the matter publicly. Within an hour of that conversation, according to the FBI documents, the Associated Press published a story in which Clinton denied having sent classified emails on her private server.
Both the FBI and the State Department disputed that their employees had engaged in a quid pro quo. The agencies, though, acknowledged that Kennedy had inquired about the classification of an email, and the FBI said that in the same conversation, a bureau official “asked the State Department official if they would address a pending, unaddressed FBI request for space for additional FBI employees assigned abroad.”
The FBI said its official was not a part of the criminal Clinton email investigation.