Fox News senior judicial correspondent Judge Andrew Napolitano said on “The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson” Tuesday that the scandal surrounding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email during her tenure went beyond a civil matter, and had the potential to be a criminal matter.
“It would depend what’s on her e-mails,” Napolitano said. “If on her e-mails is classified information– say information about the raid to capture and kill Osama bin Laden, something of the highest level of classified — and she had that on her personal e-mails, she arguably could be charged with the same crime for which the government announced this morning General Petraeus will plead guilty, which is the improper storage, improper removal, improper placement of classified materials.”
Napolitano said that the scandal was more than “a question of her personal ethics and her personal judgment. She took an oath to uphold the law. The law requires that the government, the government retain all of these documents. She knowingly violated the law.” (VIDEO: Judge Napolitano: Did Obama ‘Provide Material Assistance To A Terrorist Organization?’)
“That’s not a criminal violation, it’s a civil wrong,” he said. “She knowingly violated that law when instead of the government retaining all only her documents and e-mails she moved it over to her own email account. The remedy there is all of it has to go back, not just what her assistants want to go back, but all of it has to go back.”
“Arguably, these private e-mails—some classified information could be on the private e-mail that she had on that server,” Carlson noted.
“That’s the potential criminal charge if the government wants to treat her the same way it treated General Petreaus,” he agreed.