by Laura Koran
(CNN) The State Department
announced Friday that it will not release 22 emails from former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton because they contain "top secret" information,
the highest level of government classification.
The decision, coming three
days before the Iowa caucuses, could provide fodder for Clinton's political
opponents, especially Republicans, who are likely to make note of the emails'
"top secret" designation. Clinton's email use has haunted her on the
campaign trail since it became public early last year that she maintained a
private server while leading the State Department.
State Department spokesman
John Kirby said the documents, totaling 37 pages, were not marked classified at
the time they were sent, but are being upgraded at the request of the
Intelligence Community because they contain sensitive information.
But, Kirby said, a separate
review by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research is
being held into whether the information in the emails was classified at the
time they were sent and received. He would not say when the review began or how
long it would go, and acknowledged it's possible there could be classified
emails that weren't marked as such.
"It's certainly possible
that for any number of reasons, traffic can be sent that's not marked
appropriately for its classification. That is certainly possible," Kirby
said.
But he added that he wasn't
going to make any judgments about this particular case.
"All I can tell you
definitively is it wasn't marked classified at the time it was sent,"
Kirby said.
A senior State Department
official said the review "began very recently" and was initiated by
the State Department, but the official wouldn't say what prompted it.
A spokesperson for the
Intelligence Community's inspector general declined to comment.
Kirby also said 18 emails,
comprised of eight email chains between Clinton and President Barack Obama, are
being "withheld in full" to "protect the President's ability to
receive unvarnished advice and counsel." But, Kirby said, they "have
not been determined to be classified" and said they will "ultimately
be released in accordance with the Presidential records act."
Clinton did not mention the
email controversy during campaign events Friday. But in an interview with KCRG in Dubuque, Iowa, Clinton
maintained that she "never emailed anything that was considered to be
classified" and asked for the emails to be released.
"I'd love for people to
see what I did and I hope that will happen," she said.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for
Clinton's campaign, said in a statement that Friday's announcement was a case
of "over-classification run amok" and reiterated Clinton's position
that the emails be made public.
But later Friday, Fallon
declined to say whether Clinton would ask Obama to declassify the emails when
pressed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room."
"The President easily
could declassify all of these emails if she asked him and if he agreed,
right?" Blitzer asked.
"I'd really be surprised
if this has risen to the President's level," Fallon replied.
"Because, again, this a mundane matter of fulfilling a FOIA request."
Asked Friday if he had
"certainty and confidence" that Clinton will not be indicted over the
email controversy, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said any decision
to prosecute Clinton would rest with the Justice Department.
"That is a decision to be
made solely by independent prosecutors," Earnest said. "But again,
based on what we know from the Department of Justice, it does not seem to be
headed in that direction."
The State Department released
more than 900 of Clinton's emails Friday -- 242 of which received classification
upgrades: 11 to "secret" and 209 more to "confidential,"
along with the 22 emails containing "top secret" information -- but
the release fell well behind the judge-imposed timetable for producing all of
her emails.
Among the most interesting
correspondence:
Clinton seeking to confirm
with her team that a piece of information, which top aide Jake Sullivan
described as proof the new Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications
was doing its job, was "not classified or otherwise inappropriate" and
fit to share with a reporter;
Evidence that Clinton actively
lobbied on behalf of the Affordable Care Act -- at one point, she emailed
Miguel Rodriguez, then the director of the White House Office of Legislative
Affairs, to inform him she'd spoken and received a "yes" from
then-Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry.
John Podesta, now the chairman
of Clinton's campaign, emailing aide Cheryl Mills to ask if she had a personal
email to which he could send a message hours ahead of a meeting with then-chief
of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Clinton asking, "So, can
someone sign just my first name?" when presented with a farewell letter
(written by Huma Abedin) to former Sen. George Mitchell as he prepared to leave
after two years as the top U.S. envoy to the Israelis and Palestinians.
The emails have been
publishing over the last eight months more or less in
accordance with a schedule set by Judge Rudolph Contreras, with
increasingly large batches uploaded to a State Department website at the end of
each month.
This month's release was
supposed to be the final one and include just over 9,000 pages of documents --
the largest number to date.
But last Thursday, the State
Department filed a motion
to extend the final productions until February 29 because the department
had failed to send more than 7,000 pages of those emails to other government
agencies for review, only recognizing the mistake earlier this month.
That delay was then compounded
by a huge snowstorm that shut down the federal government for several days,
according to the State Department's motion.
Several prominent Republicans,
including presidential hopefuls, quickly condemned Clinton, the Democratic 2016
front-runner, over Friday's developments.
"The new e-mail release
is a disaster for Hillary Clinton. At a minimum, how can someone with such bad
(judgment) be our next president?" GOP front-runner Donald Trump tweeted.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said
Clinton's email use was a "disqualifier" for the White House.
"Hillary Clinton put some
of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server
because maybe she thinks she's above the law," Rubio said at a town hall
event in Clinton, Iowa.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told
conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Clinton's email controversy would
seriously imperil her presidential aspirations.
"We are talking about serious offenses for which the Obama Justice Department threw the book at General (David) Petraeus," Cruz said. "And justice needs to be enforced fairly and impartially."
And Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted that Clinton and the Obama administration have "obfuscated and misled at every available opportunity," adding that she has "removed all doubt that she cannot be trusted with the presidency."
But Rep. Adam Schiff,
D-California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said
classification determinations "are often very complex."
"It's important to
remember that none of these emails had any classification markings at the time
they were sent, and Secretary Clinton and her staff were responding to world
events in real time without the benefit of months of analysis after the
fact," Schiff said.
Meanwhile, Clinton's top
Democratic 2016 rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said in a statement that
"there is a legal process in place which should proceed and not be
politicized."
"The voters of Iowa and
this nation deserve a serious discussion of the issues facing them,"
Sanders said, and referenced the Democratic
debate in October, when he memorably declined to attack Clinton over the
issue.
"The American people are
sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," he said then to
applause.
CNN's Ariane de Vogue, Tom
LoBianco, Greg Krieg, Dan Merica and Lauren Selsky contributed to this report.
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