The Washington Post has added more Pinocchios to Hillary Clinton’s email claims in light of the briefing FBI Director James Comey delivered yesterday. The damning report not only said that classified information was on these emails, but that the security culture at state was appallingly absent with regard to the caretaking of such sensitive material. The publication initially gave the former firs lady two Pinocchios, which point to glaring omissions or exaggerations last year, but Comey’s briefing earned her the four Pinocchios rating, showing what many have already known since the beginning of this self-inflicted (and avoidable) disaster: she’s a total liar [bold text indicates Comey’s remarks]:
“I’m confident that this process will prove that I never sent nor received any e-mail that was marked classified.”–Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, news conference, Ankeny, Iowa, Aug. 26, 2015
“Whether it was a personal account or a government account, I did not send classified material and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified, which is the way you know whether something is.”
–Clinton, news conference, Las Vegas, Aug. 18, 2015
“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material. I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
— Clinton, news conference, New York, March 10
[…]
… [A] Reuters examination of the e-mails released by the State Department, published on Aug. 21, found that at least 30 e-mail threads contained “foreign government information,” judging from the classification stamps that were added to the e-mails when they were placed in the public domain. “Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information,” the report said. “In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government.”
A good example is an e-mail, labeled “Personal: Afghanistan,” sent on Nov. 21, 2009, from Matthew Gould, then chief of staff to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, to Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s top aides. Miliband had just returned from a trip to Afghanistan and had written a five-page analysis that he wanted Clinton to read before they had a phone conversation about the trip. Miliband “very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note,” Gould wrote.
Abedin forwarded it to Clinton’s private e-mail, saying “another note from Miliband that he doesn’t want to send through the system.”
But Miliband’s observations on Afghanistan cannot be viewed today by the general public—and will remain secret until 2029. Every page is redacted, labeled “CONFIDENTIAL–Reason: 1.4(B), 1.4(D).”
[…]
FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 his agency will not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of private email server. However, he said out of 30,000 emails that Clinton returned to the State Department, 110 emails in 52 email chains were found “to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received” — a contradiction to Clinton’s original, technical wording about whether or not classified materials were in her emails. Eight of the chains contained information that was “top secret” at the time they were sent. Thirty-six chains contained “secret” information. Eight contained “confidential” information, the lowest classification.
Another 2,000 emails were “up-classified” (emails that have reason to be classified now, even if they were not classified at the time they were sent), Comey said.
Moreover, Comey directly contradicted Clinton’s claim that she did not send or receive materials “marked” classified:
“Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”
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