President Barack Obama’s former Defense Intelligence Agency chief said it was “unbelievable” and “unreal” that two classified emails contained “top secret” information when they hit Hillary Clinton’s unsecured personal server at her home.
Fox News has reported that an intelligence community review has re-affirmed that two classified emails were “top secret” when they hit her unsecured personal server despite a challenge by the State Department,
Two sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News in a report that while the emails were “top secret” when they hit Clinton’s server, one of them remains “top secret” to this day — and must be handled at the highest security level.
Army Lt. General Michael T. Flynn (ret.), Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and his chair of the Military Intelligence Board until August 2014, told The Daily Caller News Foundation the information “doesn’t belong on a private server, she knows that.”
Informed that one of the top secret messages concerned North Korean missile movements, Flynn said, “That’s unbelievable. That’s unreal,”
“Very, very clear policies and regulations that have been violated, and I think the government ought to hold people accountable for their actions,” Flynn told the DCNF
The reaffirmation of the top secret designation of the emails is now considered a “settled matter” despite a State Department challenge, according to Fox News.
The originating agencies that produced the intelligence – the CIA and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or NGA – reviewed the emails to determine how they should be properly stored on her personal email server.
The State Department took issue with their highly-classified nature. The subject matter has widely been reported as addressing the movement of North Korean missiles and a drone strike.
A top secret designation requires the highest level of security, and must be stored in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), a highest level of security facility into which access is strictly limited.
The second email is still considered classified but at the lower “secret” level because more information is publicly available about the event.
The findings have been transmitted to the State Department, which continues to challenge the intelligence community’s conclusions about the classification of all the emails, according to Fox News.
The department has no authority to change the classification since it did not originate the information.
Earlier this month, there were some reports that the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” classification, a development that could have helped Clinton’s presidential campaign deflect allegations about mishandling classified material.
Fox News, however, reported that the the handling of one email has changed since it was drafted and sent, but this change has no bearing on the “top secret” nature of the emails when first received on Clinton’s server. This protocol is what matters most to the FBI probe.
While the classification finding is important, the central issue is whether the FBI investigation concludes there was or was not a criminal violation.
Fox News also reported earlier this month that two top Republican senators have written directly to Secretary of State John Kerry and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about possible leaks from their departments on their review of Clinton’s emails — wrongly leaving the impression that the two “top secret” messages were not that sensitive.
The letter was sent Nov. 13 by Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who heads the Intelligence Committee, with copies sent three days later to the intelligence community and the State Department’s inspectors general. The IGs were asked to conduct an independent review of the process.
While the senators’ letter is not public, Fox News has confirmed that the senators cited the Politico report from Nov. 6 where unnamed sources claimed the two “top secret” emails had been downgraded after a second review. While hailed by Clinton’s supporters as evidence she did not break the law and send classified information on her personal email account, the Politico story was later updated to reflect the fact that Clapper’s office said the review was ongoing.
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