A Hillary Clinton email released on Monday shows the former secretary of state questioning whether she had been forwarded classified information in an unmarked email, suggesting that she was well aware that classified information can be classified regardless of if it is “marked” or “unmarked.”
In defending against critics who say she improperly mishandled classified information on her personal email account and private email server, Clinton has said that she did nothing wrong because none of the hundreds of classified emails she sent or received were “marked” as such when they were created.
But an email she sent to two of her aides on April 25, 2012 shows that she was concerned that it contained classified information, even though it had no markings suggesting it was.
“If not classified or otherwise inappropriate, can you send to the NYTimes reporters who interviewed me today?” Clinton wrote.
She was responding to an article she had been forwarded which referred to the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which President Obama created in 2011 in conjunction with the State Department in order to combat terrorist rhetoric.
The State Department has retroactively classified more than 2,000 emails that Clinton sent or received while in office. The intelligence community’s inspector general has determined that at least one of those emails contained information that was “Top Secret” when it was originated. Dozens of others contain “foreign government information,” which is considered to be “born classified.”
Clinton has disputed the intelligence community IG’s determination that one email on her server was “Top Secret” at the point of origin. She has denied that any other emails were classified when they were sent or received.
Clinton has previously acknowledged that there is no distinction between “marked” and “unmarked” classified information. On Jan. 22, 2009, a day after taking office, she signed a Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, known as an SF-312, which stated that “classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications.” (RELATED: Document Completely Undermines Hillary’s Classified Email Defense)