[The Hill] Hillary Clinton on Friday panned reports that the Justice Department has been asked to investigate whether she possessed classified information on her private email server, saying they contain "inaccuracies."
| It is inconceivable that she could act as Secretary of State and conduct all of her business in a collateral (UNCLAS) computer environment. Her travel itinerary and schedule as Secretary, destinations, dates, hours of arrival/departure etc, would have been classified. |
"There have been a lot of inaccuracies, as Congressman Cummings made clear this morning. Maybe the heat is getting to everybody. We all have a responsibility to get this right; I have released 55,000 pages of emails, I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions in front of the House committee," she said during an economic speech in New York.
"We are all accountable to the American people to get their facts right, and I will do my part, but I will also stay focused on the issues."
The new email troubles for Clinton stem from a New York Times report late Thursday night that said two inspectors general have asked Justice to determine "whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account" of Clinton.
A second report in The Wall Street Journal said that the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community told Congress that at least four emails from her server should have been classified as "secret."
Finally, the jig is up. She HAS received classified (SECRET) possibly higher emails on her private 'unclassified' server and computer. Last time I checked, there was no toggle switch that permits a classified computer, Secure Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNET) or JWICS (High Side) system to send classified documents to an UNCLAS computer. In fact, many agencies have inactivated the USB ports and disc drives of UNCLAS computers to prevent the upload and transfer of classified documents.
Someone or a bunch of someones somewhere downloaded classified documents to a thumb drive or disk, or scanned, then copied them to an UNCLAS computer and sent them to Clinton. If four out of some 40 emails contained classified information, it is likely that a goodly number of her emails might contain classified documents or information. The obvious question here is, what levels of classification did others in gov't receive on documents 'from' Clinton.
If other government employees received classified documents and or information on UNCLAS systems, I suspects alarms would have gone off. One or two might have slipped by, but thousands over several years? Highly unlikely.
Therefore, if other gov't officials received properly marked communications on classified systems [from Clinton], then a massive classified document laundering scheme was in play. Such a sophisticated operation would be well beyond the capability of a single system security officer (SSO) or man-in-the-loop working alone. The sheer volume of Clinton's email traffic combined with her frequent international travels and time zone hoping would have required that an entire team of classified document reviewers, declassifiers, sanitizers, or 'fixers' would have had to labor around the clock.
Per E.O. 12958, only the originating source of classified documents is authorized to 'declassify' those documents. Declassification guidance is provided on all classified documents. Lower left corner of the document as I recall: "OADR" (Originating Agency's Determination Required). Unless Information Security (INFOSEC) procedures have changed in the past few years, that's just the way it works.
My hunch is there was good reason for the establishment of a clandestine email system. A good reason for Clinton and her cohorts anyway. Obviously, she did not act alone.
Will anything come of this? Quoting Charles Krauthammer "not a snowball's chance in hell." |
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