More evidence the State Department was protecting Hillary Clinton

John Sexton:

Yesterday Ed wrote about Patrick Kennedy’s efforts at the State Department to convince the FBI to downgrade the classification of an email found on Hillary Clinton’s private server. According to FBI investigation notes, Kennedy and the FBI discussed a quid pro quo involving downgrading the classification of one email in exchange for getting some additional FBI agents stationed abroad. Kennedy also held a private meeting with an FBI agent during which he spent 15 minutes discussing the classification of this single email and asking if the FBI could “see their way” to marking it as unclassified. When that didn’t work, Kennedy asked who else he could talk to, essentially trying to find someone at the FBI who would give him the result he wanted.

But there is more evidence that Kennedy and the State Department were working to protect Clinton. According to FBI notes, the staffers who reviewed emails later turned over to the House Benghazi Committee felt “immense pressure” not to mark any of them as classified. From Bloomberg News:

Officials from the State Department’s Information Programs and Services office began a review in March 2015 of 296 e-mails that were set to be turned over to a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

“IPS felt immense pressure to complete the review quickly and not label anything as classified,” according to interview notes from a State Department official whose name wasn’t disclosed in the FBI summary.

Kennedy and other State Department bigwigs also held a weekly meeting to discuss Clinton’s emails. This group was apparently referred to as “The Shadow Government.”

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