Tipsheet

Terrific: Top Hillary Aide Who Used Private Server For Classified Info Still Has Top Level Security Clearance

Cheryl Mills has been the Clinton family attorney for more than two decades and currently serves on Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House. She also served as Clinton's chief-of-staff at the State Department, where like Clinton, Mills used a private Clinton server to send and receive classified information so secret, it cannot be released.

At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.

The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and others.

A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server. 

But despite an ongoing FBI criminal investigation into the use of Clinton's private server, along with allegations of corruption between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, Mills hasn't been stripped of her security clearance. Fox News has the details: 

A senior Hillary Clinton aide has maintained her top secret security clearance despite sending information now deemed classified to the Clinton Foundation and to then-Secretary of State Clinton's private unsecured email account, according to congressional letters obtained by Fox News. 

Current and former intelligence officials say it is standard practice to suspend a clearance pending the outcome of an investigation. Yet in the case of Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff at the State Department, two letters indicate this practice is not being followed -- even as the Clinton email system remains the subject of an FBI investigation. 

It's important to point out that security clearances are not applicable to handling classified information on private email accounts or servers. The practice of improperly storing or transmitting classified information on a private email account or server is a federal crime.

It was reported last year Hillary Clinton's security clearance is in fact under review, but has not been stripped despite thousands of pieces of classified information, including highly sensitive human source information, being found on her private server. Many members of the intelligence community demanded last summer that her clearance should at least be suspended until the FBI investigation concludes. 

“Standard procedure is that when there is evidence of a security breach, the clearance of the individual is suspended in many, but not all, cases,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration. “This rises to the level of requiring a suspension.”

As usual the Clintons, and those who are loyal to them, are exempt from normal national security procedure.