Tipsheet

Clinton's Lawyers Didn't Have Security Clearance, Why Were They Handling Classified Information?

In July FBI director James Comey confirmed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stored and transmitted top secret, classified information on multiple private email servers. Last year during a press conference at the UN about her email server, Clinton said her attorneys went through all of her emails to separate work related information from her personal business. The problem? Clinton's attorneys don't have the security clearances required to handle the type of highly sensitive, classified information found on the former Secretary's server. 

"They did not," Comey said during Congressional testimony in July when asked whether Clinton's attorneys had the proper clearance to sift through classified information found on the server. "There’s a great deal of concern about an uncleared person, not subject to the requirements we talked about in the read-in documents, potentially having access."

Now, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is asking Comey to look into why unauthorized attorneys were combing through and separating Clinton's emails without proper security clearance. 

"Just as classified information may not be provided to anyone without an appropriate clearance, classified information must also not be stored on a computer system that is not authorized to store it.  The transfer of classified information from a computer system authorized to store it to one that is not is called spillage," a letter sent to Comey late Monday states.

Clinton attorneys were not only handling classified information, they were doing so on unauthorized computer systems as well.

Chaffetz wants to know the names of everyone who handled Clinton's private server and whether they had proper security clearance to do so from the time it was set up in 2009 until the FBI launched its criminal investigation into the matter last year. He expects the FBI to turnover requested information as soon as possible.