Tipsheet

SIREN: IG Says Hillary's Server Contained Material 'Even More Sensitive' Than Top Secret

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  January 19, 2016 2:46 PM

If this early January development was a bombshell, today's revelation is a nuclear bombshell. Hillary Clinton's improper, unsecure email server appears to have endangered national security even more than previously thought -- and her excuses continue to melt away under intensifying scrutiny. Extremely serious findings from the intelligence community's Inspector General, reported exclusively by Fox News' Catherine Herridge:

Hillary Clinton's emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government's most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers. Fox News exclusively obtained the text of the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence known as "special access programs" (SAP). That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets...

Intelligence from a "special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as "top secret" – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton's private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a "need-to-know" because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection -- or a human asset -- at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time. “There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”

Hillary's campaign unsuccessfully attempted to dispute the IG's previous determination that her woefully under-secure bootleg server contained intelligence deemed 'top secret;' this is even worse.  Her already-dubious and legally-irrelevant "marked classified" excuse suffers another crushing blow. More:

The [SAP] programs are created when "the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” and “the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved," it states. According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009.

She sure did. Here it is:


No wonder officials inside the FBI are reportedly champing at the bit for an indictment.  Her conduct makes Petraeus' criminal but limited indiscretions look like child's play. In case you'd forgotten, Mrs. Clinton insisted last year that no classified material whatsoever had passed through her private server.  That lie, one of several, has now been disproven more than 1,300 times, and today's news marks another devastating disclosure.  America's top diplomat trafficked in the most sensitive US intelligence secrets that exist via her private server, which she'd been explicitly and urgently warned was uniquely vulnerable to foreign penetration.  This isn't about breaking some arcane rules or fudging some statements to deflect a political headache.  This is about high-level state secrets being willfully and recklessly compromised by a powerful cabinet secretary in a hair-brained scheme to protect her political ambitions.  And yes, it was willful.  Her inner circle knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her email arrangement was a serious problem.  As Americans wonder whether the politicized Obama Justice Department will move forward with charges against Mrs. Clinton, one wonders whether she may come to regret uttering these words:


The Congressional committees that received the IG's unclassified assessment should make the memo public. It seems as though Hillary Clinton is about to face more unwelcome questions.