Ed Morrissey:
Apparently, exposing classified information via unsecured communications channels was all the rage among Democrats in 2011. Who knew? Actually, that’s a darned good question arising from the latest release of e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized and non-secure homebrew e-mail server. One newly released communication came from then-Senator John Kerry’s iPad, and some of the content has been redacted with a SECRET classification level,The Hill’s Julian Hattem reports:
As a senator, Secretary of State John Kerry sent at least one email to Hillary Clinton from his personal account that has now been classified as secret, the State Department confirmed on Tuesday.
The largely redacted May 19, 2011, email from Kerry — then the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee — “was sent from a non-official account,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
That account, Kirby added “is no longer active.”
The message referenced India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was classified for containing information about foreign governments and U.S. foreign relations.
The e-mail in question has four sections redacted in the body, two of which are explicitly marked as SECRET. The declassification date is 5/27/2036, exactly twenty-five years after the original transmission of the message — indicating that the information within it was classified at that time, not by the Inspector General or the State Department as a precaution on its discovery within the system.
And oh, by the way — the top of this document shows Hillary transmitting the classified information to someone in the State Department from her “hrod17” account. That would be another potential violation of 18 USC 793, as well as 18 USC 1924 via the unauthorized retention of this information on Hillary’s private e-mail server in her home. That joins more than 1,300 other examples of violations of the criminal statutes regarding transmission and retention of classified information.
Is there a Dept or high level official in the entire administration that isn’t email challenged?
As was pointed out elsewhere, Clinton’s private e-mail server seems to have been a lot more secure than any number of officially “secure” government computer systems. There’s no indication that it was ever hacked by Guccifer, or anybody else. Stories suggesting that it was try to create that false impression by referring to e-mail that was actually on some other server—generally e-mail sent to Clinton, not by her.
Here are your basic facts: The scandal is a politically motivated sham. The allegations of wrongdoing are b.s. The evidence that has been presented in support of them is non-existent. There is no evidence that Clinton’s server was ever compromised by hackers, which is a lot more than can be said for numerous officially “secure” government networks.