IG: Some emails on Clinton’s server were beyond top secret

The IG letter has been sent to leaders with the House and Senate intelligence committees and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general.

The inspector general for intelligence agencies, Charles McCullough, sent a letter to lawmakers last Friday saying that several dozen additional classified emails have been found. They include ones containing information from so-called special access programs, which have a classification higher than top secret. “There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material”, a former law enforcement official with extensive knowledge of SAP told Fox News. But she has insisted that she didn’t violate protocol – noting that she used communication practices that were widespread across the federal government – or pass along material marked classified.

In the January 14 letter, McCullough told Senators Bob Corker and Richard Burr that based on sworn declarations from intelligence personnel that “several dozen” emails had been identified that contained confidential, secret, or top secret/SAP information.

A Clinton spokesperson did not immediately provide comment on the matter.

Almost 1,400 emails found on Clinton’s server have been retroactively classified, including at least two containing “top secret” information. The information “does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received”, the campaign said, according to The Associated Press.

“It is the most sensitive of the sensitive”, the official explained to the news outlet.

While Republicans have criticized Clinton over the issue, her defenders have pointed out that the State Department has long faced the problem of how to communicate about sensitive matters.

Facing criticism a year ago for exclusively using a private server during her time as USA secretary of state, Clinton handed over about 30,000 work-related emails for the State Department to make public. Our (Freedom of Information Act) review process is still ongoing. Bernie Sanders, her main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, declared at a debate in October that Americans were “sick and tired” of hearing about her “damn emails”.

“Do you have any comment on this, and do you have any reason to believe that there was any such highly classified information on her email server?”

While the emails were reportedly found on her server, it is unclear from the letter whether Clinton herself was personally sending or receiving them.

The Justice Department is investigating if classified information improperly ended up on Clinton’s email server. The FBI launched an investigation to find out who at the State Department sent the information to Clinton’s private email account.