300 Hillary Clinton emails screened for classified info

Intelligence agencies are pushing forward with their reviews of emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal account that might contain classified information, while a top Republican lawmaker is questioning whether Clinton’s personal attorney had the proper clearances to handle material deemed “TOP SECRET.”

The intelligence agencies flagged 300 emails that warrant further scrutiny, according to a court filing the State Department made to explain to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras why it is taking so long to make the emails public under the Freedom of Information Act.


Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Clinton attorney David Kendall to explain how he secured three thumb drives containing back up copies of roughly 30,000 emails that Clinton gave to her former agency in printed form last year.

“It appears the FBI has determined that your clearance is not sufficient to allow you to maintain custody of the emails,” Grassley wrote in a letter sent to Kendall Friday and obtained by POLITICO. “Reporting indicates that Secretary Clinton may have provided you copies of her emails in December 2014 and that government officials realized that the emails contained classified information in May 2015, yet the Department of State did not deliver a safe to store the thumb drives until July 2015.”

Grassley suggested it was unlikely that a safe — reportedly in Kendall’s law office — would by itself be deemed adequate to hold data classified at the “TOP SECRET/Secure Compartmented Information” level.

“It appears that in addition to not having an adequate security clearance, you did not have the appropriate tools in place to secure the thumb drives,” the senator wrote. “It is imperative to confirm when, how, and why you, and any of your associates, received a security clearance in connection with your representation of Ms. Clinton and whether it was active while you had custody of Secretary Clinton’s emails.”

Kendall and spokespeople for Clinton’s presidential campaign did not respond to questions about Grassley’s letter. Clinton aides have previously stressed that none of the emails was marked as classified when they were sent or received.

Most of Grassley’s queries seem to be based on news reports about Kendall’s role in storing the emails. State Department spokespeople have said publicly that Clinton had legal counsel with a security clearance. However, they have not said specifically whether Kendall or others were granted clearance for the purpose of handling the Clinton emails.

Grassley has also complained that the State Department and FBI have not responded to his previous inquiries about the handling of Clinton’s emails and their sensitive contents.

Grassley’s new salvo came as the court filing detailed the intelligence reviews. The new figure of 300 warranting further scrutiny suggests that by the time officials finish wading through the roughly 30,000 emails the former secretary of state returned to her agency last year, about 1,500 are likely to be referred to intelligence agencies to see whether they contain national security secrets.

“Out of a sample of approximately 20% of the Clinton emails, the [Intelligence Community] reviewers have only recommended 305 documents—approximately 5.1%—for referral to their agencies for consultation,” Justice Department lawyer Robert Prince wrote in a court filing related to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Vice News.

The submission served as an explanation to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras about the State Department’s failure last month to reach a goal the judge set in May for public release of the documents.

Contreras had urged the department to process 15 percent of the pages of Clinton emails by July 31. The agency by that date had cranked out about 12 percent. Officials said the shortfall was caused by a new process to review the records for classified information.

“It is important to recognize … that the IC reviewers had only eight business days, until July 24, to screen documents for the July 31 release,” Prince wrote. “Yet in those eight days, the IC reviewers managed to screen enough emails to allow the Department to produce 2,206 pages on July 31. To meet the Court’s original target for July, the Department needed to produce 3,927 pages. Based on these numbers, if the IC reviewers had had another eight days, let alone the full month, they would have been able to meet the target.”

So far, only about 70 of the emails released have been redacted to withhold classified information. All but one was classified at the lowest level, “CONFIDENTIAL,” to protect State Department interests in sensitive diplomatic or foreign government information. One was classified at the middle tier of classification, “SECRET,” at the request of the FBI. It appeared to involve reports of arrests in Libya potentially related to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi.

Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III has said in letters to Congress that his investigators found classified information in four emails from Clinton’s account while reviewing a small sample of just 40 of the messages. Two of the messages contained information classified at the highest level, “TOP SECRET,” with additional restrictions beyond that, McCullough said.

However, State Department officials have said they do not agree with some or all of those classification determinations.

Clinton and aides to her presidential campaign have stressed that no messages carried classification markings. However, earlier this month, her personal lawyer David Kendall turned over to the FBI three thumb drives containing copies of the messages. The FBI has also taken possession of at least one server that was used to store Clinton’s emails after she left the State Department.