Earlier today, my good friend and colleague, Bonchie, penned an excellent article about the latest twist in the Clinton e-mail saga, one that demonstrated just how dangerous her actions were to National Security. Please go have a look.

Because of his timely article, I thought I might once again review just how corrupt the FBI was, especially former Director Comey, when he “cleared” Secretary Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing. Comey’s excuse? Secretary Clinton had no intent to violate the law. Despite the fact that the applicable statute regarding the handling of classified information doesn’t require intent, the explainer below will show that there was indeed such intent and a number of people should be doing hard time.

Let me be clear at the outset; somebody committed a felony, likely several. If as some reports have indicated, there was certain overhead imagery, marked or unmarked on Secretary Clinton’s e-mail server, someone committed a serious crime. The way government information/cyber systems are set up, someone had to take a deliberate series of felonious actions in order for that imagery to get there. Period.

Instead of getting into a detailed primer on Department of Defense and Department of State electronic communications, I’ll give you the short version. This is especially important as it puts to bed the bogus argument that Clinton displayed no criminal intent during her e-mail debacle. It demonstrates that it is absoloutely certain that there were several felonies committed—no doubt whatsoever.

Although the State Department and the Department of Defense use different systems for their unclassified communications, they do share some of the same systems for their classified traffic. The unclassified systems used by Defense and State have e-mail, file sharing and teleconferencing capabilities. Those systems also have access to the Internet. Some agencies allow their employees to use their unclassified computers to conduct limited personal business, such as sending e-mails and looking at RedState online, during their breaks. These employees can also send e-mail to private addressees from this system.

The classified systems the agencies use jointly are:

SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network): used to transmit material that is classified CONFIDENTIAL or SECRET. It may not be used to transmit TOP SECRET material.

JWICS (Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System): used to transmit TOP SECRET information, to include highly classified satellite imagery. The JWICS system is where Private Bradley Manning likely obtained the information he later gave to Wikileaks. This is also the system the State Department uses to routinely receive and access satellite imagery and imagery analysis, along with other TOP SECRET information.

What is important to understand is that, except for extremely rare and tightly controlled circumstances, JWICS, SIPRNet and the in-house unclassified systems do not connect to each other or with outside systems. The only way to get information from one system to another is to use a system I have yet to introduce, the SneakerNet.

“SneakerNet” is IT slang, referring to someone taking information on one system, saving it to portable media, disk or thumb drive and walking (“sneakering”) it over to the other system and uploading it, thereby bypassing the procedural safeguards inherent in separate, unconnected systems. An alternative, using the same concept, would be to print the data from a JWICS terminal (possibly inside the State Department) and then scan the hard copy into an unclassified system. This method would also work were someone get access to a hard copy document or photo handed out at a meeting.

One of the advantages of this unconnected system of systems is that it virtually eliminates “spillage,” the accidental release of one level of classified information into an arena not cleared for it. If there was reconnaissance satellite imagery or analysis of that imagery on Secretary Clinton’s server or any other unclassified system, it is a virtual certainty that someone had to take a series of deliberate and felonious steps to put it there—deliberate and felonious steps.

A photo would have had to have its markings deliberately removed. Then it would have had to have been copied from JWICS onto removable media (or printed out) and uploaded (or scanned) to either an unclassified computer & e-mailed to Secretary Clinton, or directly uploaded to her server. In the case that what was on her server was merely a written assessment of what the imagery shows, the above still pertains. Someone had to make a series of deliberate decisions and steps to either copy or transcribe the assessment from JWICS and send it via a nonsecure e-mail to Secretary Clinton.

Secretary Clinton is on the e-mail record as directing staff to do just that. A few years ago, National Review published an article entitled: Clinton Pushed Aide to Strip Markings from Sensitive Documents, Send through ‘Nonsecure’ Channel. From that article (Emphasis mine)

During a 2011 e-mail exchange, Hillary Clinton urged top aide Jake Sullivan to strip classified talking points of all markings and send them through “nonsecure” means after a secure fax line failed to function. On the night of June 16, 2011, Sullivan told Clinton that important talking points on an undetermined issue would be faxed to her the following morning. When Clinton informed Sullivan that the talking points had not yet materialized, he began a frantic search for the problem. “They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax,” he wrote to Clinton 15 minutes later. “They’re working on it.” “If they can’t, turn into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton replied.

What this means, is that the conversation about this being a mistake, accident, or minor error in judgment, is a flat out lie. In my humble opinion, this lie should be rolled into an obstruction of justice charge—yet another felony. If I, or anyone else with a TS clearance had treated classified information in such a fashion, we’d still be in Fort Leavenworth. Given the disclosures in Bonchie’s article, showing that Classified e-mail migrated from Clinton’s unsecure server to another G-Mail account, it’s readily apparent that the criminal crone from Chappaqua along with her coterie, needs to be locked up—and they need to do hard time.

Disclosure: The last time I personally used any of these systems was in 2012. Systems and procedures have likely changed since then.

Mike Ford is a retired Infantry Officer who writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters. He has when required, held a TS-SCI Clearance.

You can find his other Red State work here.

He is also (reluctantly) on Twitter: @MikeFor10394583