Seven email chains sent from Clinton’s private server withheld

However, the department will withhold seven email chains, constituting 22 emails, which the agency now believes to include highly classified information.

C-SPANHillary Clinton’s campaign has repeatedly pushed back on the idea that any of the emails she sent using her personal email system while serving as Secretary of State were classified top secret.

In the buildup to the scheduled late Friday document dump, several leaks to U.S. media had suggested that highly secret information had been found on Clinton’s private server, which she used while in office instead of an official government account.

The revelation came just three days before the Iowa presidential nominating caucuses in which the former Secretary of State is a candidate.

The State Department and the intelligence agencies have been wrangling over the email review ever since McCulloch, acting on the request of Republican members of Congress, objected last summer to the release of some emails that intelligence officials had claimed included classified information.

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon blasted the State Department for “over-classification run amok”.

Legal questions aside, it’s the potential political costs that probably more concern Clinton.

Department officials would not describe the substance of the emails or say if Mrs Clinton sent any herself. Kirby said the decision was “not unusual”.

If Clinton knew the information should have been classified but it hadn’t yet been deemed to be a government secret, she also can’t be prosecuted. But without classification markings, that may have been hard, especially if the information was in the public domain. Hillary has maintained from the beginning that she never knowingly sent or received classified information on her private account, so the answers to those questions could have major ramifications in the race for the Democratic nomination.

On the campaign trail, both Clinton and her team have sought to downplay the importance of the issue and her responsibility for the matter.

“Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being the commander-in-chief of the United States”, Rubio said. Friday’s will be the first at top secret level.

It’s the first time the Obama administration has confirmed that Clinton’s home-brew email system contained messages worthy of one of the highest levels of classification, according to The Hill. Republicans jumped on the chance to throw mud on the Clinton campaign wall, hoping this time something will stick.

The department had been ordered to release all the emails by Friday, but last week asked the court for a one-month extension, saying it had forgotten to share thousands of emails with other departments for their review. Clinton is now in Iowa trying to fend off rival Bernie Sanders before next Monday’s caucuses. In recent weeks she has more often said none of her emails were marked that way.

When he retweeted the news, Jeb Bush said the country needed a president who could be trusted: “Obviously that’s not @Hillary Clinton”.

Mrs Clinton’s campaign reacted with fury to the announcement, demanding that the emails be released in full in order to defuse a burgeoning scandal that could critically damage her 2016 presidential hopes.