Sensitive emails

A guide to Hillary's most sensitive emails

The former secretary of state has argued that no emails on her account were marked as classified at the time she received them.

By Josh Gerstein

Hillary Clinton stored at least 63 emails on a private server that have now been deemed classified by the State Department, a collection of messages that contains diplomatic information not normally discussed in public.

The messages already released contain just one with “SECRET” information withheld at the request of the FBI and the rest of the classifications at the lowest tier, “CONFIDENTIAL” — a level usually invoked for diplomatic communications.

However, some of the emails on Clinton’s server that appear most sensitive did not get either classification. They include near-real-time reports on the violence that unfolded in Libya in 2011 and 2012.

Two of the messages sent on unclassified systems are updates from Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador killed in the Benghazi attacks in 2012. One mentions contingency plans to evacuate American diplomats by sea. Another gives details about safety precautions Stevens’ team is taking at its hotel and about tactics being used by Libyan militias.

POLITICO reviewed 63 emails posted on the State Department website that are formally marked as classified, as well as two others Fox News has cited as potentially classified. POLITICO discovered another with similar sensitive content during its review.

Some in the intelligence community insist Clinton’s emails contain secrets that should have been classified at a very high level. Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III has asserted that a sampling of just 40 emails turned up four that were classified, of which two were “TOP SECRET” and derived from sensitive signals intelligence.

Clinton has argued that no emails on her account were marked as classified at the time she received them, regardless of what anyone says today. She insists that she’s being pulled into an interagency fight that reflects a predisposition for secrecy among some in the intelligence community.

“What’s going on here is something that happens all the time: you have a bureaucratic tangle over what counts as classified and what doesn’t,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in a Web video Friday.

The presence of dozens of classified messages in the account she maintained as secretary of state has turned into a thorny issue for Clinton as she seeks to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

The controversy has intensified partly because Clinton has revised her statements about the sensitivity of the material. In March, when reports surfaced that Clinton handled her email through a private server, she insisted that none of her exchanges dealt with national security secrets. “There is no classified material,” Clinton declared. Now, she carefully says they were not classified at the time or bore no classification markings.

However, over time, the list of messages deemed classified by the State Department has grown as the agency reviewed batches of the messages for public release. Clinton turned over about 30,000 emails — totalling 55,000 pages— to State last December, and the agency first reported in May that it had found one classified document. By June, the number grew to 26. In July, the figure was revised to 63.

Reporters combing through the email releases have flagged others that deal with sensitive subjects but have no markings.

The tally is expected to rise further. The agency is still going through Clinton emails and releasing sets of them each month in compliance with a judge’s order. So far, only 11.7 percent of the 55,000 pages of emails have been released in response to pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. (Clinton also erased a roughly equal number of messages her lawyers deemed personal. The FBI is reportedly trying to reconstruct those from her server.)

Making sense of the redacted documents often requires further research. State Department censors have redacted details deemed classified, but the gist of the messages can often be divined from other information in the emails.

There’s a request from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for points to make about Middle East peace in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are reports to Clinton on various countries’ position on a key vote on Iran’s nuclear program and on veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s efforts to enlist Clinton’s help in brokering deals to resolve tensions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Most of the messages deemed classified were forwarded to Clinton by three of her top State Department aides — chief of staff Cheryl Mills and deputy chiefs of staff Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.  

The messages from and about Stevens are under scrutiny by a special congressional committee on Benghazi that is investigating whether the administration took appropriate action to safeguard Stevens and other Americans.

Clinton has also offered another defense: that the debate over what’s classified really has nothing to do with the question of whether it was proper for her to use a private email account and server. They note that the law and federal rules say classified information shouldn’t circulate on unclassified systems, whether they’re private or public.

“It has nothing to do with the fact that my account was personal,” Clinton said at a news conference last week. “If it were a government account, they would be saying the same thing.”

Critics reply that Clinton should have known some spillover of classified information into her email was all but certain given the sensitivity of her job, making her choice of the potentially less-secure private server all the more unwise.

The State Department is disputing a few of the classification decisions and has asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. to resolve the question.

“It’s really important to understand that just because they’re classified now doesn’t mean that anybody did anything wrong back in 2009 when they were sent,” spokesman John Kirby said last month.