Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server
FNC: EXCLUSIVE: At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.
The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and others.
A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.
The State Department recently confirmed that the messages in question include the most sensitive kind of intelligence. On Jan. 29, Fox News first reported that some emails on Clinton’s server were too damaging to release in any form. The State Department subsequently announced that 22 “top secret” emails were being withheld in full; these were the messages being handled by more than a dozen accounts.
Kennedy recently told the House Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton’s personal email account from the beginning, but did not understand the “scope,” thinking it was for reaching husband Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea — and not for the exclusive handling of State Department business. Kennedy’s testimony appears to conflict with emails released through the Freedom of Information Act that show he routinely sent and received government business from the Clinton account.
Fox News has asked the State Department to comment on the email accounts that shared the highly classified information, and how it was that Kennedy did not understand the “scope” of Clinton’s personal email being used for government business.
A spokesman for the intelligence community inspector general, which has been reviewing the classification of the Clinton server emails, had no comment.
*** From ABC and the White House last year:
President Obama Knew Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Address, But Not Details of Server
President Obama exchanged emails with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her private address — @clintonemail.com — but did not know the details of her account or how she would comply with administration policy and federal records law, the White House said today.
“Yes, he was aware of her email address. He traded emails with her,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “But he was not aware of her personal email server or that she was using it exclusively for all her business.”
Asked how often Obama and Clinton emailed, Earnest said he “would not describe the number as large.”
In an interview Saturday, Obama said he learned of his secretary of state’s private email address use through recent news reports, “the same time everybody else learned it.”
Earnest explained that the president was referring to details of her email system and the fact that she had not been in compliance with State Department policy for nearly six years after failing to submit the records for transfer to government computers.
Clinton has called for the public release of 55,000 emails turned over to the State Department for archiving. Her team handpicked the messages off her private server that pertained to official business; Clinton’s camp said roughly 10 percent were of a personal nature and not handed over.
“I’m glad that Hillary [has] instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed,” Obama said Saturday.
Earnest said an independent, third-party review of Clinton’s private server should not be required, but suggested that the White House would not oppose one if she elected to do so.
The former Secretary of State has remained mum on the email controversy. She has yet to explain why she exclusively used private email through a server built inside her New York home while Secretary of State, or why it took six years to submit the records as required under the department policy she oversaw.
*** Some emails being withheld could have Obama’s communication exchanges included:
In the past few months, Clinton had been facing issues of trustworthiness during surveys as a result of evidence of the existence of top secret material in her private email server.
Clinton has encouraged the State Department to release her email as quickly as possible and, when delays have occurred, her campaign has been quick to point out that they do not control the schedule, which was set by the court and government bureaucrats.
Officials in the State Department have asked for additional time to vet the messages because of the recent snowstorm that hit Washington.
“This seems to be over-categorization run amok”, it said in statement.
So far, officials haven’t really described what’s in the emails or even if Clinton sent them.
The presidential hopeful has acknowledged that her choice to make use of a personal email server at her Nyc house was a blunder. We feel no differently today. But as is often the case with the Democratic presidential candidate, she dodged the question and gave an inconsistent answer.
The State Department is separately withholding 18 e-mails comprised of eight e-mail chains between Clinton and President Barack Obama, Kirby said. Such operations are widely discussed publicly, including by top USA officials, and State Department officials debated McCullough’s claim.
The AP reported last August that one focused on a forwarded news article about the classified US drone program run by the Central Intelligence Agency.
