Detectives question lack of autopsy in Scalia death

New York Post | By Jamie Schram and Bob Fredericks | February 15, 2016

Antonin Scalia Photo: Zumapress

Veteran homicide investigators in New York and Washington, DC, on Monday questioned the way local and federal authorities in Texas handled the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

“It’s not unreasonable to ask for an autopsy in this case, particularly knowing who he is,” retired Brooklyn homicide Detective Patricia Tufo told The Post.

“He’s not at home. There are no witnesses to his death, and there was no reported explanation for why a pillow is over his head,” Tufo said. “So I think under the circumstances it’s not unreasonable to request an autopsy. Despite the fact that he has pre-existing ailments and the fact that he’s almost 80 years old, you want to be sure that it’s not something other than natural causes.”

Bill Ritchie, a retired deputy chief and former head of criminal investigations for the DC police, said he was dumbstruck when he learned that no autopsy would be performed.

“I took a look at the report and I almost fell out of my chair,” Ritchie told The Post from his home in Maryland.

“I used to be an instructor in the homicide school. Every death investigation you are handling, you consider it a homicide until the investigation proves otherwise,” Ritchie said.

“How do you know that person wasn’t smothered? How do you know it’s not a homicide until you conduct an investigation? You have to do your job. Once you go through that process, you can conclude that this is a naturally occurring death.”

Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara said she declared Scalia dead via telephone based on what cops and marshals at the scene told her — that there were no signs of foul play.

“How in the world can that Texas judge, not even seeing the body, say that this is a heart attack?” Ritchie wondered. “A US marshal can’t tell you. You need a medical professional. If this was Joe Blow, you say OK, 79 years of age, health problems, maybe natural causes. But this is a sitting justice of the Supreme Court!”

Guevara also spoke by phone with Scalia’s physician, who told her Scalia had several chronic medical conditions and had gone to the doctor’s last week for a shoulder problem, reports say.

Scalia’s family did not want an autopsy, she added.

With AP

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

The Washington Post | By Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman February 11 at 12:18 PM

Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Huma Abedin, stops at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 7. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.

The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.

The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department’s inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.

A foundation representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry, said the initial document request had been narrowed by investigators and that the foundation is not the focus of the probe.

A State IG spokesman declined to comment on that assessment or on the subpoena.

Representatives for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Abedin also declined comment.

There is no indication that the watchdog is looking at Clinton. But as she runs for president in part by promoting her leadership of the State Department, an inquiry involving a top aide and the relationship between her agency and her family’s charity could further complicate her campaign.

For months, Clinton has wrangled with controversy over her use of a private email server, which has sparked a separate investigation by the same State Department inspector general’s office. There is also an FBI investigation into whether her system compromised national security.

Clinton was asked about the FBI investigation at a debate last week and said she was “100 percent confident” nothing would come of it. Last month, Clinton denied a Fox News report that the FBI had expanded its probe to include ties between the foundation and the State Department. She called that report “an unsourced, irresponsible” claim with “no basis.”

During the years Clinton served as secretary of state, the foundation was led by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. She joined its board after leaving office in February 2013 and helped run it until launching her White House bid in April.

Abedin served as deputy chief of staff at State starting in 2009. For the second half of 2012, she participated in the “special government employee” program that enabled her to work simultaneously in the State Department, the foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal office and Teneo, a private consultancy with close ties to the Clintons.

Abedin has been a visible part of Hillary Clinton’s world since she served as an intern in the 1990s for the then-first lady while attending George Washington University. On the campaign trail, Clinton is rarely seen in public without Abedin somewhere nearby.


Republican lawmakers have alleged that foreign officials and other powerful interests with business before the U.S. government gave large donations to the Clinton Foundation to curry favor with a sitting secretary of state and a potential future president.

Both Clintons have dismissed those accusations, saying donors contributed to the $2 billion foundation to support its core missions: improving health care, education and environmental work around the world.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, has largely avoided raising either issue in his campaign. Last spring, Sanders expressed concerns about the Clinton Foundation being part of a political system “dominated by money.”

Sanders has batted away questions about the email scandal, famously saying at a debate last fall that, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”

The potential consequences of the IG investigation are unclear. Unlike federal prosecutors, inspectors general have the authority to subpoena documents without seeking approval from a grand jury or a judge.

But their power is limited. They are able to obtain documents, but they cannot compel testimony. At times, IG inquiries result in criminal charges, but sometimes they lead to administrative review, civil penalties or reports that have no legal consequences.


The IG has investigated Abedin before. Last year, the watchdog concluded she was overpaid nearly $10,000 because of violations of sick leave and vacation policies, a finding that Abedin and her attorneys have contested.

Republican lawmakers, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have alleged that Abedin’s role at the center of overlapping public and private Clinton worlds created the potential for conflicts of interest.

State Dept to release 550 Clinton emails over Presidents' Day weekend

The Hill | By Julian Hattem - 02/10/16 11:22 PM EST

The State Department will release 550 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private sever this weekend, under pressure from a federal judge who earlier this week appeared visibly annoyed at its delayed efforts.

In a court filing late on Wednesday night, State Department official Eric Stein told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that department staffers have made “significant progress” on preparing the emails for release.

As a result, the department will now be able to release the roughly 550 emails — which represent roughly 14 percent of the 3,700 remaining Clinton emails — on Saturday, in the middle of the three-day Presidents' Day weekend. The department had previously said that it could not release the emails until late next week.

Releasing the emails on Saturday “provides time to address any additional problems that may arise,” Stein wrote, “as have occurred in the past at this final stage in the process.”

The Obama administration is already more than a week behind schedule on the emails, which were all supposed to have been released by Jan. 29.

But last month, in a surprise announcement shortly ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the State Department said that the last of Clinton’s emails would not be made public until the end of February.

Before Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday, the administration said that it could not even release a fraction of those emails until at least next Thursday. In Stein’s filing late on Wednesday, however, he claimed that the State Department had brought on “additional resources” that have helped it speed up the process.

The State Department has been releasing the roughly 30,000 allegedly work-related emails from Clinton’s “homebrew” server on a monthly basis since last year, as result of a lawsuit filed by Vice News reporter Jason Leopold. The monthly tranches have steadily added to the fire surrounding the former secretary of State's bespoke email setup, which has been highly criticized from Republicans on the presidential campaign trail.

In court on Tuesday, the administration said that it had approximately 570 emails ready to be posted to the Internet, but that it would take days for officials to do so.

Posting the documents to the Internet “could be upwards of 16 hours,” Stein wrote on Wednesday — or two 8-hour work days.

“Posting documents on State’s FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] website involves several steps, and State’s ability to efficiently carry out these steps is sometimes limited by the available technology and by the availability of personnel who are sufficiently familiar with the technology,” Stein wrote. “The FOIA system where the documents reside … can be extremely rigid and slow, making the necessary steps in the process more time-consuming than one might otherwise expect.”

Clinton’s server is currently in the hands of the FBI, which confirmed to the State Department this week that it has an ongoing investigation related to the machine. The bureau is exploring the possibility that classified information was mishandled, and some of Clinton’s critics have hoped for a criminal indictment.

More than 1,500 emails released by the State Department from Clinton’s inbox have been classified at some level. Twenty-two emails, which the department did not release, even in a redacted form, were classified at the highest level of “top secret.”

The emails were not marked as classified when they were sent, officials have noted, and Clinton’s presidential campaign has brushed off the government actions as “over-classification run amok.”

Woman who accused Bill Clinton of assault to campaign against Hillary presidential run

Reuters | BY JONATHAN ALLEN | February 8, 2016

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) waves after being introduced onto the stage by husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, during a campaign rally at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa January 30, 2016.
REUTERS/ADREES LATIF . SAP IS THE SPONSOR OF THIS CONTENT. IT WAS INDEPENDENTLY CREATED BY REUTERS' EDITORIAL STAFF AND FUNDED IN PART BY SAP, WHICH OTHERWISE HAS NO ROLE IN THIS COVERAGE

One of the women who has accused former U.S. President Bill Clinton of sexual assault says she has agreed to work for an anti-Clinton political group being formed by a former advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer who says Bill Clinton groped her in an Oval Office hallway in 1993 when she came to him tearfully seeking a paid job, said she had agreed to become a paid national spokeswoman for a group being created by Roger Stone.

Stone, a Republican strategist, said the group would become active should Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton's wife, win the Democratic nomination in the 2016 race for the White House. Clinton is currently the front runner.

"This gives me more of an opportunity to get this message out to young voters who weren't even born or don't even remember what happened and to the women who have suffered," Willey told Reuters.

Willey said she will give interviews and speeches and appear in political advertisements to ensure the accusations remain part of the political discourse during the election campaign.

"They're going to be confronted every day, on radio, on television, on billboards," Stone told Reuters, referring to the Clintons. He said he had reached a verbal agreement with Willey but cautioned that the group was still in the planning stages.

Spokesmen for Hillary and Bill Clinton did not respond to questions about Willey.

Stone's political action committee, which can raise virtually unlimited funds to advocate for or against candidates, was originally created last year under the name Women Against Hillary. It was renamed in January as the Rape Accountability Project for Education PAC, or RAPE PAC.

In a 1998 deposition, Clinton "emphatically" denied Willey's accusation he groped her, describing her as having "been through a lot" in reference to her family's financial woes and her husband's suicide on the day Willey says her encounter with Clinton happened.

Clinton has admitted having extra-marital affairs with two other women: Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, and Gennifer Flowers, a singer and actor from his home state of Arkansas, but he and his lawyers have said accusations by other women are false.

It's not clear whether Stone's group will resonate with voters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January found that a majority of the public, including 68 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans, thought that Bill Clinton's past sexual misconduct "made no difference" in the current race.

Among women, 56 percent said it did not matter, while another 21 percent said it would hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the election.

Several Republican candidates, particularly Trump, have reminded voters of the allegations while campaigning. The Clintons and their staff have dismissed this as dirty politics.

CLINTON ACCUSERS ARE BACK

Hillary Clinton's decision to advocate for victims of sexual assault has persuaded some of her husband's other accusers, including Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones McFadden, to wade into the political season.

Broaddrick and Willey say that Clinton, who has said victims of sexual assault have the "right to be believed," is being hypocritical by doubting her husband's accusers.

When asked about the accusations by Broaddrick, Jones McFadden and Willey at a campaign event in New Hampshire in December, Hillary Clinton replied that people who say they were sexually assaulted should be "believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence."

Stone released a book last year called "The Clintons' War on Women," for which Willey wrote the foreword. After leaving Trump's campaign, Stone created a pro-Trump political action committee, the Committee to Restore America's Greatness. He says he remains friendly with Trump.

Trump himself, angered at Hillary Clinton calling him sexist, described Bill Clinton as "one of the great women abusers of all time" and Hillary Clinton his "enabler" at a campaign event last month.

A spokeswoman for Trump, who is barred by Federal Election Commission rules from coordinating with super PACs, did not respond to questions.

Stone has also helped to set up an online fundraising page to help raise money to pay for Willey's mortgage, he said. She said she has been in financial difficult since her husband's suicide and is facing foreclosure on her Virginia home this month.


(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, editing by Ross Colvin)

SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters' editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

Video Shows Planned Parenthood Executive Sought to Hide Profits from Baby-Parts Sales

Breitbart | by DR. SUSAN BERRY | 3 Feb 2016

A new video released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) appears to show how Planned Parenthood uses accounting gimmicks to hide profits created through the sale of body parts of aborted babies.

A financial benefit “is what staff and management need to see,” says an executive at a Planned Parenthood facility in Texas.

The video highlights footage from the April 9, 2015 visit of investigative journalists David Daleiden — director of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) — and CMP employee Sandra Merritt to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s (PPGC) abortion facility in Houston.

“We had two levels of invoicing for them. We had it worded as ‘per consent,’” explains PPGC Director of Research Melissa Farrell. In the video, Farrell states “per consent” is the phrase used in PPGC budgeting in place of “per specimen” for fetal tissue.

Farrell discusses that while a woman may consent to supply her aborted baby’s tissue, the specimen itself may not be useable for experimentation.

“There’s probably some situations where somebody would consent and then just not, we didn’t get a sample, or she changed her mind, or something happened to the specimen,” she says, adding, “Now obviously, we don’t want to end up paying for material that we can’t use,” and suggests that there be a line item fee or “something else that represents the specimens.”

“I just don’t want it to turn into a situation that is not financially beneficial for you,” says Merritt.

“Yeah, yeah. And we’ll, I’ll take you up on that. I’ll take you up on that. I’ll take you up on that,” Farrell repeats, laughing. “We definitely want to do that, because that’s what staff and management need to see.”

PPGC CEO Melaney Linton also appears in the video advising that Farrell will “work on all of that with you” when it comes to “remuneration” and “compensation” for fetal tissue.

Farrell explains to Daleiden and Merritt over lunch that her department – which has overseen the organization’s fetal tissue supply program since 2006 — “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here.”


Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), chairman of the House’s Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, said the new video footage is “deeply disturbing.”

Blackburn said in a statement:

The comments in this video by an employee of a large abortion provider are deeply disturbing and seem to demonstrate a willingness to obfuscate and hide their true intentions. The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives is examining these issues and this new video, once again, raises more questions about the medical procedures and business practices used by entities involved in fetal tissue procurement. Our panel intends to follow the facts where they lead us.

Daleiden and Merrit – who were indicted by a Harris County, Texas grand jury while Planned Parenthood was entirely cleared of wrongdoing – are presenting themselves to the court in Houston on Thursday morning. At that time, national pro-life leaders will present over 100,000 signatures calling on District Attorney Devon Anderson to drop the charges against the journalists, Operation Rescue reports.

According to Associated Press, these are not the first allegations of bias Anderson – who ran for office as a pro-life Republican — has faced:

Anderson was barely three months into office when the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue accused a Houston doctor of performing late-term abortions. The activist behind those allegations, Troy Newman, was also a founding member of the Center for Medical Progress — the anti-abortion group headed by Daleiden…
Operation Rescue had released disturbing photos and accusations from the former staff of Dr. Douglas Karpen. A grand jury declined to indict Karpen; the abortion provider’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, said Karpen was smeared by doctored pictures and false allegations made by individuals who were paid by Operation Rescue.
Lewis, a longtime political donor in Houston whose beneficiaries include Anderson, said he helped soften the political fallout for her in Republican circles.
“I told them, ‘Don’t hitch your wagon to this. They’re crooks, and it’s going to be exposed,'” Lewis said, referring to Operation Rescue.
Kansas-based Operation Rescue has denied paying informants and had questioned the evidence seen by the grand jury. Anderson’s handling of both cases is also questioned by Texas Right to Life, a prominent anti-abortion group that endorsed the district attorney in 2014.
“It’s incomprehensible,” Conway said of Anderson’s actions.
Anderson acknowledged in August that a prosecutor on her staff was a board member of the Houston Planned Parenthood clinic but said that person would not be involved in the grand jury case. In a statement announcing Monday’s charges, Anderson said, “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us.”
Lewis said the assistant prosecutor who oversaw the Karpen investigation also handled the Planned Parenthood case. “I don’t think she forgot what she uncovered,” Lewis said…
Planned Parenthood attorney Josh Schaffer said a prosecutor told him the grand jury never even voted on possible criminal charges against the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“Planned Parenthood’s self-interested political maneuvers will never silence free speech or the citizen press,” Daleiden said in a statement. “The new video released today shows that no amount of half-baked barratry can conceal Planned Parenthood’s barbaric harvesting and profiting off baby body parts.”

Peter Breen, special counsel with the Thomas More Society – which is representing Daleiden, said:

The charges against David Daleiden are legally and factually baseless. David used standard undercover journalism techniques to catch Planned Parenthood staff agreeing to alter abortion procedures to get more intact organs and tissue from aborted babies, presumably without telling their patients. David also caught Planned Parenthood staff discussing how to adjust accounting line items to conceal profits from baby body part transactions. Planned Parenthood’s lawyers in Houston have now admitted they dreamed up and demanded the charges against David, apparently in order to distract prosecutors and the public from their own bad acts. We intend to seek to have these charges dismissed at the earliest opportunity.

Condoleezza Rice Aides, Colin Powell Also Got Classified Info on Personal Emails

NBC | by KEN DILANIAN | FEB 4 2016, 11:48 AM ET

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks at the International Rescue Committee Freedom Award Dinner at The Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Wednesday Nov. 9, 2011. Eric Reichbaum / AP file

The State Department's Inspector General has found classified information sent to the personal email accounts of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the senior staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NBC News has learned.

In a letter to Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy dated Feb. 3, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick said that the State Department has determined that 12 emails examined from State's archives contained national security information now classified "Secret" or "Confidential." The letter was read to NBC News.

Two of the messages were sent to Powell's personal account, and 10 were sent to personal accounts of Rice's senior aides, the letter said.

None of the messages were marked classified when originally sent, and none were determined to include information from the intelligence community, Linick said in the document.

Colin Powell told NBC News he strongly disputed that the information in the messages was classified, and characterized the contents as innocuous. Said Powell, "I wish they would release them so that a normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, 'What's the issue?'"

Linick said his initial findings suggest there could be a lot more classified material in State's unclassified archives. He recommended that State take steps to find and remove it.

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Hillary Clinton on FBI Email Investigation: 'Not Concerned' 1:27

The IG came upon the material during the course of a review of how current and past secretaries of state deal with classified material and with email. The review was prompted by the current controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a personal computer server to conduct government business while secretary of state.

Linick's findings will be seen as helpful to Clinton, because they show that past secretaries of state and senior officials used personal accounts to conduct government business and occasionally allowed secrets to spill into the insecure traffic.

Clinton’s Security Clearance Is Under Scrutiny

Bloomberg | By Eli Lake & Josh Rogin | FEB 4, 2016 6:00 AM EST

SHE'S USED TO SCRUTINY. PHOTOGRAPHER: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Now that several e-mails on Hillary Clinton's private server have been classified, there is a more immediate question than the outcome of the investigation: Should the former secretary of state retain her security clearance during the inquiry? Congressional Republicans and Democrats offer predictably different answers.

The State Department announced Friday that it would not release 22 e-mails from Clinton’s private server after a review found they contained information designated as top secret. U.S. officials who reviewed the e-mails tell us they contain the names of U.S. intelligence officers overseas, but not the identities of undercover spies; summaries of sensitive meetings with foreign officials; and information on classified programs like drone strikes and intelligence-collection efforts in North Korea.

The FBI is investigating the use of Clinton’s home server when she was secretary of state, which the bureau now has. The New York Times reported in August that Clinton is not a target of that investigation. We reported in September that one goal is to discover whether a foreign intelligence service hacked in.

Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Clinton should not lose her security clearance for receiving information that was not marked classified at the time. "I'm sure she does hold a clearance, and she should," he told us.

Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of that committee who also has read the e-mails, told us, "It's important, given all the information we now know, that the House of Representatives work alongside the executive branch to determine whether it's appropriate for Secretary Clinton to continue to hold her security clearances."

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr told us the decision lies with the White House. “I think that’s up to what the National Security Council is comfortable with,” he said.

Burr, who has also read all 22 e-mails, said Clinton should have known to better protect the information they contain. “They are definitely sensitive," he said. "Anybody in the intelligence world would know that the content was sensitive.”

His Democratic counterpart, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who also read them, told us that Clinton didn’t originally send any of the e-mails and that they were largely from her staff, although she did sometimes reply. Feinstein said the intelligence community is being overly cautious by designating the e-mails as top secret.

“There’s no question that they are over-classifying this stuff,” she said.

Clinton’s discussion of classified programs on an unclassified e-mail system is hardly rare. The issue, called “spillage,” has plagued the government for years. It can apply to anything from a spoken conversation about intelligence programs outside of a secure facility, to printing out a document with classified information on an insecure printer.

Still, it is forbidden. The State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual says "transmitting classified information over a communication channel that is unauthorized for the level of information being transmitted" is a "security violation." Such violations must be investigated by the State Department's own bureaus of human resources and diplomatic security. Punishment can vary from a letter of reprimand to loss of security clearance, according to the manual.

When asked about the status of Clinton's security clearance, State Department spokesman John Kirby said: "The State Department does not comment on individuals’ security clearance status. We will say, however, that generally speaking there is a long tradition of secretaries of state making themselves available to future secretaries and presidents. Secretaries are typically allowed to maintain their security clearance and access to their own records for use in writing their memoirs and the like.”

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.

During the Obama administration, it has not been automatic for officials to lose their security clearance while an investigation is underway. Just last week, the Washington Post reported that the chief of naval intelligence, Vice Adm. Ted Branch, had his security clearance suspended because he is wrapped up in a Justice Department investigation into contracting corruption. He has not been able to read, see, or hear classified information since November 2013. Branch has not been charged with any crime and continues to serve in that post.

But when then-CIA director David Petraeus came under FBI investigation at the end of 2012, his security clearance was not formally revoked. After he resigned, his access to classified information was suspended, according to U.S. officials. In that case, Petraeus had provided notebooks with highly classified information to his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell, whose security clearances did not permit her to receive it.

Unlike Broadwell, officials familiar with the e-mails tell us that Clinton and her e-mail correspondents were cleared to receive the information that has been classified after the fact. Steven Aftergood, who heads the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told us, "It's entirely possible for information to start out as unclassified and to be classified only when the question of public disclosure arises."

William Leonard, who oversaw the government's security classification process between 2002 and 2008 as the director of the Information Security Oversight Office, told us this kind of "spillage" was common. "The bottom line is this, if you have the opportunity to pore through any cleared individual's unclassified e-mail account, it's almost inevitable you would find material that someone, some way would point out should be classified." He also said that in Clinton's case, "there is no indication that she deliberately disregarded the rules for handling classified information so I see no reason why she should not remain eligible for a security clearance."

Nonetheless, Leonard added that Clinton's decision to use the private e-mail server as secretary of state "reflected exceedingly poor judgment, and those that advised her on this did not serve her well."

The FBI investigation may determine that neither Clinton nor her aides broke the law, but Clinton herself has said she used poor judgment. It's an open question how that poor judgment will affect her access to state secrets, during and after the FBI's investigation.

JOHN KERRY USED PERSONAL ACCOUNT TO SEND HILLARY ‘SECRET’ EMAIL

Mikael Thalen | Infowars | FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry used a personal email account to discuss “secret” information with Hillary Clinton during his time as a senator, the State Department confirmed Tuesday.

The heavily-redacted email, according to State Department spokesman John Kirby, was undoubtedly “sent from a non-official account.”

“The one that we talked about being upgraded to ‘Secret’ was sent from a non-official account, and the account from which it was sent is no longer active,” Kirby said.

Sent from Kerry’s iPad in May of 2011, the email was classified as “secret” before being released Friday over its mention of sensitive U.S. foreign relations.

The few unredacted sections reveal the discussion to be centered around policy in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

“We all know this will be a troubled relationship because that is it’s [sic] nature,” Kerry wrote. “But there are real possibilities at this moment to put options to the test.”

The discovery of yet another high-ranking Obama administration official using a private email to discuss sensitive information hints at an even larger disregard for national security than previously known.

Friday’s release of new Clinton emails also revealed that the State Department had suggested creating a “stand-alone” computer for Clinton in 2009 that would operate outside of the department’s network.

“Days after Clinton was sworn in as secretary of State, department official Lewis Lukens offered to give her a computer that would be ‘connected to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check emails from her desk,'” writes The Hill.

Clinton also received more than 18 emails from President Obama despite claims from the commander-in-chief that he had learned of the private email account from the “media.”

According to former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino, who joined the Alex Jones Show earlier this month, Clinton continued using her private email despite knowing that her server had been hacked.

Official: Some Clinton emails 'too damaging' to release

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne | Published January 29, 2016 | FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding. 

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton's personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from "special access programs," or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that "several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels."

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full -- which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold "operational files." Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as "HCS-O," which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation."

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server -- and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.



Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

State to release some Clinton emails on Friday; thousands still delayed

The Hill | By Julian Hattem - 01/29/16 09:14 AM EST

IMAGE SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

The State Department on Friday will release roughly 2,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails, but will delay the final batch of messages until after voters go to the polls in early primary states.

In a court filing late on Thursday evening, the department insisted that it “regrets” its inability to publish the final 7,000 pages on Friday, as a federal court ordered it to do last year.

Yet it defended the delay, blaming an internal oversight and the snowstorm that crippled Washington in the past week.

As part of the process of making the emails public, the State Department is required to have other agencies review Clinton’s emails to check if any information should be redacted or marked as classified.

According to the department, it simply “missed” sending roughly 7,000 pages of emails to other agencies, and did not notice the oversight until earlier this month. Its efforts to correct the problem were further delayed by the snowstorm, which closed the federal government through Wednesday.

The department has not even sent out documents to 12 agencies to review, it said.

Last week, the department pushed to delay the final deadline until Feb. 29.

As the journalist who sued the department to force the emails’ release pointed out, however, that would be after voters in the first four primary states have gone to the polls.

“[I]f the Court allows State to delay release of thousands of pages of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s official work emails, a substantial portion of the electorate will be forced to vote without the benefit of important information to which it is entitled about the performance of one of the candidates for U.S. President while serving as Secretary of State,” lawyers opposing the department’s schedule claimed earlier this week.

The Obama administration was unmoved.

“Upcoming electoral events, while admittedly important to the public, do not change the fact that State needs this reasonable amount of additional time to complete the final stage of this enormous and complex undertaking,” lawyers representing the State Department wrote.

Critics have warned that the final tranche of emails could contain scandalous or scintillating nuggets about Clinton’s time in the State Department. Administration lawyers this week attempted to dismiss those allegations.

The 7,000 pages of emails that won’t be out for another month needed to go through “multiple” other agencies for review, they claimed.

“But that does not mean that these emails are more ‘controversial’ than other emails, or that the oversight that led to them not being sent to all the necessary agencies was related to their substance," they wrote.

The admiral in charge of Navy intelligence has not been allowed to see military secrets for years

The Washington Post | By Craig Whitlock | January 27 at 8:06 PM

In this 2012 photo, Rear Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, speaks to the crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Spec. 3rd Class Heath Zeigler)

For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets.

Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel.

Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaderssuspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations.

More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked.

Although the Navy transferred Loveless to a slightly less sensitive post, it kept Branch in charge of its intelligence division. That has resulted in an awkward arrangement, akin to sending a warship into battle with its skipper stuck onshore.

[Epic Navy bribery scandal shows how easy it can be to steal military secrets]

Branch can’t meet with other senior U.S. intelligence leaders to discuss sensitive operations, or hear updates from his staff about secret missions or projects. It can be a chore just to set foot in colleagues’ offices; in keeping with regulations, they must conduct a sweep beforehand to make sure any classified documents are locked up.

Some critics have questioned how smart it is for the Navy to retain an intelligence chief with such limitations, for so long, especially at a time when the Pentagon is confronted by crises in the Middle East, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and other hotspots.

“I have never heard of anything as asinine, bizarre or stupid in all my years,” Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and historian, said in an interview.


In an op-ed in Navy Times last fall, Polmar urged Navy leaders to replace Branch and Loveless for the sake of national security. He cited complaints from several unnamed Navy officers that “intelligence management is being hampered at a moment of great turmoil.”

Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, left, and Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch. (U.S. Navy via Associated Press)

It’s a touchy subject for Navy brass, who have struggled to replace Branch. Twice in the past 14 months, they have taken steps to nominate a new intelligence chief — who must be confirmed by the Senate — but haven’t followed through. There’s no indication that a successor will be in place anytime soon.

In a statement, Rear Adm. Dawn Cutler, the Navy’s chief spokeswoman, said the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation of Branch and Loveless “has not impacted the Navy’s ability to manage operations.” She said the two still perform managerial duties while their civilian and military deputies handle the classified aspects of their jobs.

Branch and Loveless declined interview requests placed through the Navy.

In addition to serving as chief of Navy intelligence, Branch holds the title of the Navy’s chief information officer, oversees the Navy’s 55,000-member Information Dominance Corps and is in charge of many cybersecurity programs.

Privately, some Navy leaders acknowledged that dealing with the fallout from the Justice Department’s investigation has been a nightmare, and that they never anticipated the case would drag on so long.

“We had the understanding that this was going to resolve itself pretty quickly,” said a senior Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing federal prosecutors. “We have no actionable information on Admiral Branch, good, bad or otherwise. All we know is that he’s wrapped up in this somehow.”

“Until these things resolve themselves, we’re kind of frozen,” the senior official added. “Is it optimum? No, it’s not optimum. But it’s where we are.”

Cigars and suckling pigs

Branch has long been a star in the Navy’s officer corps. A fighter pilot by training, he has flown combat missions over Grenada, Lebanon, the Balkans and Iraq.


He’s perhaps best known for his leading role in a 10-part PBS documentary, “Carrier,” an inside account of life aboard the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, which he commanded in 2005.

In July 2013, he was promoted to become a three-star admiral and director of naval intelligence. But he would soon become hamstrung in the job.

About the same time, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Justice Department were intensifying an investigation of Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a Singapore-based firm that had resupplied U.S. Navy vessels at Asian ports for a quarter century.

The company’s chief executive, Leonard Glenn Francis, was lured to the United States in a sting operation and was arrested at a San Diego hotel. A large and charismatic man known as “Fat Leonard,” he was charged with running a bribery scheme and defrauding the Navy of more than $20 million.

An undated company handout photo shows Leonard Glenn Francis, aka “Fat Leonard,” defense contractor who supplied U.S. Navy vessels in Asia for a quarter century. (Glenn Defense Marine Asia)

Several Navy officials were arrested, including a senior NCIS agent who confessed to feeding inside information to Francis for years.

As the case unfolded in federal court, prosecutors described in astonishing detail how Francis had bribed Navy officers with prostitutes, cash-stuffed envelopes, lavish hotel stays, spa treatments, and epicurean dinners featuring champagne, Cuban cigars, Kobe beef and Spanish suckling pigs.

In exchange, prosecutors said, some Navy officials provided Francis with classified information and steered Navy vessels to ports he controlled so he could overcharge the U.S. government for fuel, food, water and other supplies.

The investigation escalated quickly as federal agents traced Francis’s interactions with hundreds of Navy personnel over the previous decade.

On Nov. 8, 2013, late on a Friday night, the Navy announced that Branch and Loveless had been swept up in the case.

The Navy gave no details about what they were alleged to have done. Although the Navy said there was no evidence that either admiral had compromised military secrets, it suspended their access to classified material, saying the move was “prudent given the sensitive nature of their current duties.”

‘Good time on Leonard’s dime’

Little information about their predicament has surfaced since then.

One year later, Branch issued a statement to the Navy Times in which he said investigators were examining work performed by Glenn Defense Marine Asia while he served as the commander of the Nimitz.
He didn’t elaborate, but said he looked forward to the end of the inquiry “so that I can resume in full my service to the Navy and the country.”

Justice Department officials declined to answer questions about their scrutiny of Branch or to discuss why the inquiry has taken so long.

“This remains an active, ongoing investigation that covers conduct that spans more than a decade and involves a massive amount of evidence, multiple countries, tens of millions of dollars in fraud, and millions of dollars in bribes and gifts to scores of U.S. Navy officials,” Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney in San Diego, said in a statement.

[Three U.S. naval officers censured in ‘Fat Leonard’ corruption probe]

A source close to the investigation said more than 100 Navy personnel and other people remain under investigation for potential criminal, financial or ethical violations.

“The sheer number of people involved here is extraordinary,” the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

A second source close to the investigation said that Branch met Francis 16 years ago, when Branch was the executive officer of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, and that the pair stayed in regular contact.

The source said Francis has also known Loveless for many years, dating to his deployments in Asia as an intelligence officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and as intelligence chief for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, based in Japan.

Although it is against federal ethics regulations to accept gifts from contractors, the Justice Department is focusing on Navy personnel who in turn did Francis’s bidding by sharing inside information or enabling him to overcharge the government.


“Some guys were just having a good time on Leonard’s dime,” the second source close to the investigation said. “Other guys were passing on classified information.”

Prosecutors have suggested that more arrests are likely. Seven defendants, including Francis, have pleaded guilty so far in federal court.

Federal corruption charges also are pending against a Navy commander and a senior Pentagon civilian. In addition, a former Navy contracting official living in Singapore was arrested there last month.

The extent of the scandal has been deeply humiliating for the Navy. Last week, at the sentencing of an enlisted sailor who forked over military secrets in exchange for cash and electronic gadgets, Rear Adm. Jonathan A. Yuen, the chief of the Navy Supply Corps, said he was mortified by the revelations in court.

“I do not have the words to express the depth of the betrayal,” Yuen testified. “No amount of money is worth betraying our nation, our Navy or our shipmates.”

In addition to those facing criminal prosecution by the Justice Department, the Navy has been investigating an unspecified number of people suspected of violating military regulations.

In February, for instance, the Navy officially censured three admirals for dining at “extravagant” banquets and accepting other gifts from Francis when they were assigned to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group a decade ago.

Three stars or two stars

With Loveless’s status in limbo, the Navy transferred him to another position in December 2014.

As the corporate director for information dominance, he still works for Navy intelligence. But he deals primarily with issues that don’t require a security clearance, such as personnel and training, officials said.

The Navy has twice taken steps to replace Branch as well, but for reasons that remain unclear, hasn’t gone through with it.

In November 2014, the Navy prepared a nomination package for Rear Adm. Elizabeth Train to become the service’s intelligence head. But her promotion was put on hold after someone filed a complaint against her with the Navy inspector general.

Rear Adm. Elizabeth L. Train. (U.S. Navy)

Details of the complaint couldn’t be learned, but Pentagon officials said Train was cleared of wrongdoing by the inspector general. Her nomination was finally sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee in September.

Nothing has happened since. Pentagon officials said that her nomination has been placed on the back burner and that she’s not scheduled for promotion until July, although they declined to explain why.
Such a delay could work in Branch’s favor.

If he remains in his current job until July, he will have enough service time to qualify to retire as a vice admiral. If forced to leave before then, it’s more likely that he would have to retire at a lower rank as a two-star admiral, with a smaller pension.

The senior Navy official disputed that Branch’s rank and retirement eligibility was influencing the timetable to replace him. “That has not been a factor whatsoever,” the official said.
Even if Branch were cleared of wrongdoing by the Justice Department and the Navy tomorrow, he would face a much longer wait to regain access to military secrets.

Pentagon officials said his security clearance would have to be restored by a separate arm of the bureaucracy — the Defense Department’s Central Adjudication Facility — in a process that usually takes months.

Harris grand jury indicts pair behind Planned Parenthood videos

Chron | By Brian Rogers | Monday, January 25, 2016

Photo: Michael Paulsen, Staff

A Harris County grand jury probe into Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast ended Monday with the indictments of two anti-abortion activists.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were both indicted for tampering with a governmental record. An additional indictment for prohibition of the purchase and sale of human organs was issued for Daleiden, according to a release from the Harris County District Attorneys Office.

Video shows conversation about fetal organs; Planned Parenthood didn't comment

KMGH - Denver, CO

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"We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast," said Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson. "As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case."

THE BACKGROUND: Undercover Planned Parenthood video targets Houston clinic

Daleiden and Merritt were involved in undercover videos that surfaced last year appearing to show a Planned Parenthood official discussing reimbursement fees associated with fetal tissue procurement and donation.

The videos prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to call for an investigation into the organization.

Planned Parenthood, in a letter to Congress said Daleiden was involved in secretly recording Planned Parenthood staff and patients at least 65 times over the last eight years.

THE BACKLASH: Abbott wants harsher penalties in wake of Planned Parenthood videos

The national organization of Planned Parenthood has alleged that Daleiden and others used aliases, obtained fake government I.D.s, and formed a fake tissue procurement company in an effort to gain access to private medical conferences and health care centers.

The organization has said they also illegally taped private professional conversations of doctors and other medical providers and spliced together shards of long conversations to create short videos in order to spread false claims.

Reporter fights Hillary Clinton email delay

Politico | By JOSH GERSTEIN | 01/25/16 12:30 PM EST

Lawyers for a journalist seeking release of Hillary Clinton's email trove are objecting to the State Department's request for a month-long delay to complete disclosure of the final set of the former secretary of state's messages, warning that allowing the process to drag out until the end of February could deprive voters in early caucus and primary states of information on the Democratic presidential candidate.

State asked for an extension last week, telling U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras that State officials overlooked more than 7,000 pages of emails that were in need of interagency consultation and that the weekend's winter storm was complicating efforts to process the records.

"Unless and until State explains how over 7,000 pages that were already reviewed and identified as needing review by at least one other agency were lost for up to six months, and then suddenly found again just weeks before the deadline to produce them, the Court should view skeptically State’s assertion that this constitutes a legitimate 'unexpected' event," lawyers Ryan James and Jeffrey Light wrote in a court filing Monday morning on behalf of Vice News reporter Jason Leopold.

"Allowing State to delay the release of thousands of pages of a presidential candidate's work emails, especially when they have already garnered so much media and public attention, until after four states have voted and until just hours before another 11 states and American Samoa will vote, would deny Mr. Leopold of the opportunity to realize the fruits of his year-long pursuit of these records which he and the public have a legal right under [the Freedom of Information Act] to obtain," James and Light wrote.

Contreras issued an order in May requiring monthly release of batches of the 54,000 pages of emails Clinton kept on a private server and turned over to her former agency in December 2014. The judge set monthly goals for the percentage of pages released, but he ordered that the process be completed by Friday, Jan. 29.

State missed the monthly goals on two occasions, but subsequently made up the shortfalls. Now, it wants the final deadline extended to Feb. 29.

Leopold's attorneys said State hasn't provided enough detail about how the 7,254 pages were overlooked and whether the foul-up was due to "agency negligence or malfeasance." They said that if Contreras is inclined to grant State more time, a hearing should be held on what time is necessary.

It's unclear when Contreras will act on State's extension motion, which was filed Friday afternoon as the federal government shut down for the approaching storm. The court remains closed Monday as Washington digs out.

EVERYONE BUT HILLARY THINKS HER EMAILS WERE HACKED

Infowars.com | Rob Dew | JANUARY 22, 2016

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton denied reports that her private email server had been hacked after being confronted by an Infowars correspondent at a campaign stop in Iowa on Thursday.

BREAKING: HILLARY DENIES EMAIL HACK

Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com - JANUARY 22, 2016

IMAGE CREDIT: INFOWARS.COM

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton denied reports that her private email server had been hacked Thursday after being confronted by an Infowars correspondent at a campaign stop in Iowa.

“Secretary Clinton, last week it was reported on Infowars.com that your email server was hacked and you knowingly continued to use your email server,” Infowars’ Richard Reeves said. “Can you comment on that?”

“It’s totally untrue. Totally untrue,” Clinton replied.

The question stems from an exclusive Infowars interview earlier this month in which former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino reported that Clinton continued using her private email to discuss classified information despite knowing her server had been compromised.

“A source fed to me… and by the way Alex, an unimpeachable source by any measure… This is an unimpeachable source who said, ‘Not only was the email server hacked,’ which is breaking news… but not only was it hacked Alex, but the Clintons knew it was hacked and they kept using it,” he said.

Clinton’s denial came only hours after former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agreed that the “odds are pretty high” that Russia, China, and Iran accessed the presidential candidate’s server.

“Well, given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high,” Gates told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Just last Tuesday a letter written by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. obtained exclusively by Fox News revealed that a comprehensive review of Clinton’s email by intelligence agencies found not only dozens of additional classified messages but emails classified above the top secret level.

“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” the letter, written to both lawmakers and the State Department, said.

In response, the Clinton campaign accused investigators of working with Republicans to politicize the issue in order to damage the former first lady’s run for the presidency.

The latest release of emails from the State Department also found that Clinton instructed an aide to remove classification markings from sensitive documents before having them sent in an insecure manner.

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