When the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized Hillary Clinton’s emails last Tuesday night, the question on everyone’s mind was clear: how many emails swapped on Clinton’s private server were classified? How much classified information, then, was readily available to foreign agents and unsavory hackers who could have exploited Clinton’s less-secure Chappaqua, New York basement server, or, for that matter, her personal BlackBerry?
Breitbart News reported, based on high-level government sources, that of seven emails originally being analyzed by investigators to determine their classification status, two were deemed “Top Secret” and at least two were already classified when they were sent. Meaning: Clinton was sending and receiving classified information that she knew to be classified.
Our exclusive bombshell report galvanized the so-called alternative media, quickly picking up more than 12,000 social media shares and 5,000 comments. The Clinton campaign, unwisely, chose to go ahead and push a false talking point in defiance of our factual reporting.
Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri blasted out an email to supporters claiming that none of Clinton’s emails were originally classified.
“What makes it complicated: It’s common for information previously considered unclassified to be upgraded to classified before being publicly released,” Palmieri wrote. “Some emails that weren’t secret at the time she sent or received them might be secret now. And sometimes government agencies disagree about what should be classified, so it isn’t surprising that another agency might want to conduct its own review, even though the State Department has repeatedly confirmed that Hillary’s emails contained no classified information at the time she sent or received them.”
The “It’s Complicated” excuse, which echoed so often from the corridors of the Obama administration during the Fast and Furious, IRS, and Jonathan Gruber scandals, just didn’t hold water. And we called it out.
Breitbart News ran the headline, “Sources Say Clinton Campaign Lying In Email Coverup,” and we were right. We found and cited a memo signed by the inspector general of the intelligence community,
“IC classification officials reviewed two additional emails and judged that they contained classified State Department information when originated,” the inspector general wrote.
Breitbart News’ John Nolte even gleefully made sure that the Washington Post saw it.
As the State Department tried to keep government inspectors general away from their perfunctory review of Clinton’s emails and refused to search Clinton’s server (prompting a federal judge to order the department yesterday to finally cooperate), the truth of our reporting reached the highest levels of the Clinton investigation.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall (a preview of Clinton’s appearance before the committee in October) Sen. Ron Johnson pressed the director of the FBI on the classified email issue, citing the inspector general’s memo.
The State Department has now admitted that more than 300 of Clinton’s emails could have potentially contained classified information.
Still, the Clinton campaign pressed on. Spokesman Brian Fallon claimed that because the federal government classified some portions of a 1974 Henry Kissinger conversation after they had already been published in a history book that somehow Clinton was merely the victim of federal government “overclassification.” Again, Breitbart News noted the factual inconsistencies in the campaign’s response.
Then, today, Reuters confirmed, after an exhaustive analysis, that “dozens” of emails to and from Clinton’s email account were classified when originated.
Huh. How about that?
So, is everybody ready now for the 2016 presidential campaign? Strap in. It’s going to be one Hell of a ride.
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