The U.S. State Department said Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained several email chains with top-secret information and that those emails would be withheld from public release.
Spokesman John Kirby said the material includes seven email chains totaling 37 pages. He said those and other emails from Clinton’s archive would not be released.
Kirby said the documents were not marked classified at the time they were sent, but were being upgraded now at the request of the intelligence community.
The development came three days before the Iowa caucuses, the first event in which members of the public will cast ballots to determine their parties’ next presidential nominees. Clinton has been the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination but is facing an increasingly close race in Iowa.
The Clinton campaign demanded Friday that the emails be released in full. A campaign statement said the development was an example of “bureaucratic infighting” and “overclassification run amok.”
Clinton has been at the center of a controversy since it was discovered that she used her private email account for official business while serving as secretary of state.
Clinton has asked the State Department to release her emails in order to defuse the controversy, but it is taking officials months to sort through all the material to ensure there is no classified information in them.
State Department officials have said that using a private email account was not prohibited and that Clinton never shared classified information over the account. But critics have said it may have been a way for her to hide her communications.
Clinton initially said the private server was a matter of convenience, but later termed it a mistake.
One Comment
Samuel Simpson
Many Russian comrades and friends seem not to have a firm grasp of how American ‘democracy’ works in practice. This can result in many misunderstandings. Let me simplify matters for you: Hillary Rodham/Clinton will be the next President of the United States of America. This was decided a long time ago, and barring unforseen accidents, such as Mrs Clinton being devoured by a bear or, preferably, a crocodile, the outcome of the almost 3 year long ‘election’ process will be victory for Mrs Clinton.
Many US citizens are aware of this. Accurate figures, for obvious reasons, are not published, but it can be assumed that a sizable proportion of the over 50% of American voters who take no part in the election process do so because they know the result is a foregone conclusion. ‘Elections’ such as this are a major component of what some Western political scientists have called ‘Really Existing Capitalism’.
A grasp of these simple facts puts into perspective the current brouhaha over Mrs Clinton’s emails. She denies wiping down her private server with a cloth, and claims that she knows less than nothing about how to work a computer. When asked questions about these matters by the press, who clearly enjoy this game enormously, she repeatedly tells blatant lies, and shrugs expansively. The purpose of this charade is to allow those members of the American public so inclined to engage in futile and worthless discussions, in which they can fantasize about real justice existing in America, and pathological criminals like Mrs Clinton receiving what they deserve, from ‘The People’. This is, of course, preposterous; the chances of Mrs Clinton ever going before a court are about the same as Mr Putin joining a gay motorcycle gang. But it also serves to harmlessly deflect some of the seething hatred Americans feel for their criminal ruling class.
I hope that these few words have helped my Russian friends form a more realistic view of the American electoral process. Naturally, there is much more to be said, hidden in plain sight.