Gates: 'Odds Are High' Russia, China, Iran Accessed Hillary's Unsecure Server

Just yesterday, a man asked Hillary Clinton about a report that her unsecure, improper private email server had been hacked. "Totally untrue," she

responded twice. Watch:

Man on rope line asks Clinton about report saying her email server was hacked. Clinton: "It's totally untrue" pic.twitter.com/m0xVC2Oize
— Monica Alba (@AlbaMonica) January 21, 2016

This is self-serving wish-casting cloaked in assertion, especially with someone who at least feigns unfamiliarity with how technology works. Hours later, a fellow former Obama cabinet secretary contradicted her answer, telling syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt that it's quite likely foreign hackers penetrated her server -- which contained more than 1,300 classified emails -- including intelligence designated under the highest level of secrecy:

HH: One of your colleagues, Mike Morell, said on this program, or actually agreed with my assertion that almost certainly, Russians, Chinese and Iranians had compromised the home brew server of the former Secretary of State. He agreed with that. Do you agree with his assessment of my assessment?

RG: Well, given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high.

HH: And so if they had real time access to her server, would that have compromised national security?

RG: Well, again, it would depend entirely on what she put on there. And I just, I haven’t read any of these emails, so I don’t know what was on those servers.

He may not personally know "what she put on there," but the Intelligence Community Inspector General and the FBI do. The former entity has confirmed that Mrs. Clinton had secret, top secret and SAP 'above-top-secret' material on her unprotected server, and declined to rectify the situation even after she was personally and specifically warned of hostile hack efforts against US officials' personal email accounts. As Hugh mentioned in his question, former acting CIA director Mike Morell was rather blunt in his assessment on this score last spring:

Former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell said that he believes some foreign intelligence agencies possess the contents of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. “I think that foreign intelligence services, the good ones, have everything on any unclassified network that the government uses,” Morell said Friday in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show...“She’s paying a price for it now,” Morell said of the server. “It was not good.”

As we noted last year, a former Defense Intelligence analyst shares Gates and Morell's conclusion on this, telling Bloomberg, "I have no doubt in my mind that this thing was penetrated by multiple foreign powers, to assume otherwise is to put blinders on.” We know for a fact that 'Russia-linked hackers'

made multiple attempts to access Clinton's server, which was shockingly under-secured -- including a three-month period in which it featured no encryption at all. A former US Army Special Forces operator and intelligence expert writes in The Hill that the recent SAP revelations are a "smoking gun:"

Special Access Programs (SAP) is a game changer. It is now undeniably clear that the results of the FBI investigation will be the end of one of two things: Hillary’s bid for the White House or the legitimacy of the FBI—at least when it comes to prosecuting cases on the mishandling of classified material...First, when imagery that is classified SECRET//NOFORN (no foreign national) is viewed, regardless of the absence of classification markings, it is distinctly evident. Second, any documents that contain or reference HUMINT is always classified SECRET, and if specific names of sources or handlers are mentioned, they are at a minimum SECRET//NOFORN. Third, SIGINT is always classified at the TS level. It’s not uncommon for some SI to be downgraded and shared over SECRET mediums, however, it is highly unlikely that a Secretary of State would receive downgraded intelligence. Finally, SAP intelligence has been discovered on Clinton’s private server, and many are now calling this the smoking gun. SAP is a specialized management system of additional security controls designed to protect SAR or Special Access Required. SAR has to do with extremely perishable operational methods and capabilities, and only selected individuals who are “read on” or “indoctrinated” are permitted access to these programs. The mishandling of SAP can cause catastrophic damage to current collection methods, techniques and personnel. In other words, if you have worked with classified material for more than a day, it seems highly implausible that someone could receive any of the aforementioned over an un-secure medium without alarm bells sounding. However, reading about a Special Access Program on an unclassified device would make anyone even remotely familiar with intelligence mess their pantsuit.

I'll leave you with this apparent tactical retreat. Hmmm:

Wow. Campaign going rogue on her, or they've decided tactic backfired. Seems to concede SAP intel was on her server. https://t.co/A78jEs2Ead
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) January 21, 2016