Clinton on emails: ‘There is nothing new’

On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton struggled to defend her conflicting statements on her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State.

The State Department will release its next batch of emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state later Friday. The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called “special access programs”-a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping”.

The State Department also announced Friday that it would not release 22 of Clinton’s emails because they contained material designated “top secret”.

” Clinton’s successor as US Secretary of State, John Kerry, refused to be drawn on the widening scandal and whether the use of a private server to send the emails had threatened national security”. The State Department has already released more than 1,300 of Clinton’s classified emails, but these 22 are so serious as to merit holding them.

Clinton’s campaign has pushed back, saying the move is “over-classification run amok”, the result of “bureaucratic infighting”.

Clinton told ABC’s “This Week” that “it’s pretty clear” that Republicans are “grasping at straws” in their response to the latest release of emails from Clinton’s private home server. But critics say it may have been a way for her to hide her communications and that use of the unsecured server at her home outside New York City left it vulnerable to overseas hackers. The Clinton campaign demanded that all of her emails be released by the State Department.

Republican voter Mark Montgomery said, “She should be in jail if you ask me”.

Although Hillary Clinton seemed unmotivated at some point, it’s good to see that Sanders’ campaign surge turned the Democratic front-runner into the candidate her supporters were rooting for at the beginning: passionate, enthusiastic and full of energy. How many of Clinton’s emails fall into that sort of category is not known. Some may have been written by other State Department officials, and then forwarded by Clinton aides. The inspector general of the intelligence community has indicated that he believes some of the emails contain “top secret” material, the highest level of classification.

“I’ve been subjected…to years of scrutiny, and I’m still standing, talking to you, in the lead here in Iowa for the caucuses, and it’s a very tough gauntlet to run”, she said, adding that she feels “vetted”, “ready” and “strong”. And that literally is all I am able to say about them – not because I won’t, but because we don’t have any of the other information.

As information is unfolding regarding “top secret” emails sent to Hillary Clinton has more concerning questions rather than what the emails consisted of. He said one was among those McCullough identified last summer as possibly containing top secret information. “We just have to stay on it”, said Hillary Clinton, quoted by The Huffington Post.