Secrecy experts see no legal trouble for Clinton thus far

Republicans have called Clinton’s actions criminal.

WASHINGTON — Experts in government secrecy law say they see almost no possibility of criminal action against Hillary Clinton or her top aides in connection with nowclassified information sent over unsecure email while she was secretary of state, based on the public evidence thus far.

Some Republicans, including leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, have called Clinton’s actions criminal and compared her situation to that of David Petraeus, the former CIA director who was prosecuted after giving top secret information to his paramour. Others have cited the case of another past CIA chief, John Deutch, who took highly classified material home.

But in both of those cases, no one disputed that the information was highly classified and in many cases top secret. Pe- traeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor; Deutch was pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

By contrast, there is no evidence of emails stored in Hillary Clinton’s private server bearing classified markings. State Department officials say 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 frequently handles security-clearance cases.

Clinton’s critics have focused on the unusual, home-based email server Clinton used while in office and suggested that she should have known that secrets were improperly coursing through the unsecure system, leaving them vulnerable to hacking by foreign intelligence agencies. But to prove a crime, the government would have to demonstrate that Clinton or her aides knew they were mishandling the information — not that she should have known.

A case would be possible if material emerges that is so sensitive Clinton must have known it was highly classified, whether marked or not, McAdoo said. But no such email has surfaced. And among the thousands of documents made public, nothing appears near the magnitude of the Top Secret material Petraeus and Deutch mishandled.

Trump, last week, argued otherwise, saying Petraeus’ case involved “far less important documents.” Clinton’s documents, he told Fox News, “were more highly secret, they were more important, there were more of them. It’s really General Petraeus on steroids.”

Petraeus, a married former four-star general who headed the CIA from 2011-2012, admitted he gave his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell, journals containing Top Secret information. It included “the identifies of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level National Security Council meetings and discussions with the president of the United States,” according to court documents.

Petraeus also admitted lying to the FBI, and his emails showed he knew the journals contained highly classified information.

Deutch ran the agency from in 1995 and 1996. He took Top Secret information home and stored it on computers connected to the Internet, something he also did when he worked at the Pentagon. In January 2001, he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government secrets, but Bill Clinton pardoned him before the Justice Department could file the case.

Hillary Clinton