“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community agency],” the letter reads. | Getty Watchdog: Clinton's server had classified material beyond 'top secret'

Intelligence officials have discovered sensitive national security information on Hillary Clinton’s server that goes beyond the “top secret” level, the intelligence community inspector general told lawmakers in a letter last week.

In a copy of the Jan. 14 correspondence obtained by POLITICO, Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III told both the Senate Intelligence and Senate Foreign Relations committees that intelligence agencies found messages relating to what are known as “special access programs,” or SAP. That’s an even more restricted subcategory of sensitive compartmented information, or SCI, which is top secret national security information derived from sensitive intelligence sources.


“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community agency],” the letter reads. “These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the [intelligence community agency] to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels. According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified [intelligence community agency]sources.”

Fox News first reported the content of the letter.

The letter suggests that the universe of highly sensitive documents that passed through Clinton’s unsecured server goes beyond what was previously known. During the Clinton email release process, State has designated more than 1,300 of Clinton's emails at the “confidential” level or beyond, though Clinton and State say none were marked classified at the time. Six of those have been flagged as “secret,” a step below “top secret.”

State and the intelligence community, however, have clashed over whether the content of at least two yet-to-be-released emails were at the highest classification level: “top secret.” Those two emails actually triggered an ongoing FBI probe into the email matter over the summer, sources say.

Intelligence officials insist that both of those messages were “top secret” when they were sent and one remains so, while one is now considered “secret.”

However, the emails now deemed to contain “top secret, special access program” information are in addition to the messages previously disputed between State and the Director of National Intelligence, according to a spokesperson for McCullough. The official said the intelligence community review group is wrapping up its look into the documents and is putting these documents in the SAP category.

The Central Intelligence Agency is the agency that provided the declarations about the classified programs, another U.S. official familiar with the situation told POLITICO Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some or all of the emails deemed to implicate “special access programs” related to U.S. drone strikes. Those who sent the emails were not involved in directing or approving the strikes, but responded to the fallout from them, the official said.

The information in the emails “was not obtained through a classified product, but is considered ‘per se’ classified” because it pertains to drones, the official added. The U.S. treats drone operations conducted by the CIA as classified, even though in a 2012 internet chat Presidential Barack Obama acknowledged U.S.-directed drone strikes in Pakistan.

The source noted that the intelligence community considers information about classified operations to be classified even if it appears in news reports or is apparent to eyewitnesses on the ground. For example, U.S. officials with security clearances have been warned not to access classified information leaked to WikiLeaks and published in the New York Times.

“Even though things are in the public domain, they still retain their classification level,” the official said. “The ICIG maintains its position that it’s still ‘codeword’ classified.”

The State Department is likely to persist in its contention that some information the intelligence community claimed was “top secret” because it related to North Korean nuclear tests was actually the product of “parallel reporting” that did not rely on classified intelligence products and so should not be treated as highly classified, the official said.

However, State is set to acquiesce in the determinations regarding classified programs like drone strikes because there is a longstanding, government-wide consensus that such information must be treated as classified even if it leaks or becomes apparent from events on the ground, the official added.

The FBI, meanwhile, is still investigating whether Clinton’s server put national security at risk and whether top State staffers sent around classified information via unclassified means, which is in many cases illegal.

"This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received" said Clinton Campaign Spokesman Brian Fallon. "It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The Justice Department's inquiry should be allowed to proceed without any further interference."

Just days ago, State released an email showing Clinton asking top policy staffer Jake Sullivan to send information that was slated to be transmitted on a secure fax machine over an unsecured fax because the secured machine was apparently broken. Republicans seized on the message, saying it suggested Clinton was playing fast and loose with classified contents.

It is unclear, however, if the content of the information slated to be faxed that day was indeed classified. And State later said they had no indication that the content in question was ever sent via non-secure means.

State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the latest inspector general’s letter, but said State will protect any information determined to be classified.

“We are focused on—remain focused on releasing the rest of, the remainder of former Secretary Clinton’s emails in a manner that protects sensitive information. ….Nobody’s going to take that more seriously than we are,” Kirby said Wednesday at a daily press briefing. “We’ve said repeatedly that we do anticipate more upgrades [of classification] in our release process and we’ve been very open and honest about those upgrades when they’ve occurred.”

In the past, State has adamantly disputed the existence of any “top secret” information in the Clinton email records. However, Kirby appeared to soften that position Wednesday.

“Our FOIA review process is still ongoing and once that process is complete if it is determined that information should be classified as top secret then we’ll do so, as we have consistently done throughout the process,” he said.