Clinton emails clean, experts say
Nothing to warrant criminal charges in text released so far.
WASHINGTON — Experts in government secrecy law said they see almost no possibility of criminal action against Hillary Rodham Clinton or her top aides in connection with now- classified information sent over unsecure email while she was secretary of state, based on the public evidence thus far.
The State Department made public roughly 7,121 pages of Clinton’s emails late Monday night, including 125 emails that were censored prior to their release because they contain information now deemed classified. Earlier, it had said about 150 had been censored.
In total, the State Department has now released 13,269 pages of Clinton’s emails, more than 25 percent of the total that she turned over from her private server, said department spokesman Mark Toner.
Clinton provided the department some 30,000 pages of emails she classified as work- related late last year, while deleting a similar amount from her server because she said they were solely personal in nature.
State Department officials said they don’t believe that emails she sent or received included material classified at the time. And even if other government officials dispute that assertion, it is extremely difficult to prove anyone knowingly mishandled secrets.
“How can you be on notice if there are no markings?” said Leslie McAdoo, a lawyer who handles security-clearance cases.
Clinton’s critics have focused on the email server Clinton used while in office and suggested that she should have known that secrets were improperly coursing through an unsecure system, leaving them easily accessible to foreign intelligence agencies.
But to prove a crime, the government would have to demonstrate that Clinton or aides knew they were mishandling the information — not that she should have known.
A case would be possible if material emerged that is so sensitive that Clinton must have known it was highly classified, whether marked or not, McAdoo said. But no such email has surfaced.
State Department officials said the information redacted from the emails released Monday night was classified in preparation for public release and was not identified as classified at the time Clinton sent or received the messages. All the censored material in the latest group of emails is classified at the “confidential” level, not at higher “top secret” or compartmentalized levels, they said.
Toner insisted that nothing encountered in the agency’s review of Clinton’s documents “was marked classified.”
Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, now says her use of the home email server for government business was a mistake.
Two government inspectors have told Congress that they found material in the emails that was secret at the time it was sent to Clinton and “never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
At least one email involved CIA drone strikes, government officials have said.
Another email appeared to reference a highly classified matter, the officials said, though there was some question about whether the information was sent through classified or open channels.
Emails posted on the State Department’s website, made public under the Freedom of Information Act, show diplomats commonly slipping and discussing classified information over email.
Unlike an intelligence agency, the department seeks to operate in the open when it can.
Government employees are instructed not to paraphrase or repeat in any form classified material in unsecured email, which includes both the official state. gov email system and Clinton’s private server.
Among the emails released Monday are some from federal employees noting the constraints of discussing sensitive subjects outside of the government’s secure messaging systems.
Senior adviser Alec Ross, in a February 2010 email intended for Clinton, cited “the boundaries of unclassified email” in a message about an unspecified country, which Ross referred to as “the country we discussed.”
The email appears to focus on civil unrest in Iran during the period preceding the Green Movement, when Iranian protesters used social media and the Internet to unsuccessfully challenge the re- election of then- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ross’ email proposed circumventing Iranian governmentimposed firewalls and using technology to enable better communications between resistance organizers and protest participants.