State Department will not release 22 'top secret' Clinton emails
Unmistakably, things are far worse than we thought. With this latest development, you have to wonder why hasn't the FBI taken possession of all Killary's emails? There are still “loyalists” who remain in the former Clinton State Dept in charge of her emails. God only knows what they manipulated and deleted to save her ass… not to mention their own.
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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.
"We are aware that there is intense interest in this matter, and we are announcing this decision now because the (Freedom of Information Act) process regarding these emails has been completed," Kirby said. "While we have requested a month's extension to complete the entire review, we did not need the extension for these documents."
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.
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."
(Probably the one's relating to Benghazi)
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton's campaign, said in a statement that Friday's development was a case of "over-classification run amok."
"We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today," Fallon said.
Fallon also contended on MSNBC that the decision to withhold the 22 emails is "happening at the behest of other agencies in the government who have hijacked the process that's been taking place for the last several months."
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."
Earnest, the piece of garbage he is unwittingly tipped his hat. In other words, the WH is in communication with the DOJ working on the "fix".
In a veiled attack to divert blame elsewhere, Killary said of the Intelligence Community, "some of the members (Republican) have a hidden agenda". This is the beginning of her smear campaign. If Comey recommends prosecuting her she'll say the FBI director is just another Republican out to get her and, of course, the MSM will try to bury it or spin it to her advantage. To top this off 70% of the simpletons, (aka) her supporters, don't care about her emails.
More emails to be released
The State Department will release another batch of Clinton's emails Friday, but the release is expected to fall well behind the judge-imposed timetable for producing all of her emails.
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.
I forgot... you can't send emails when it's snowing.
In a separate filing Thursday night, lawyers for the State Department said the State Department "candidly acknowledged -- and regrets -- that it was responsible for the failure to send the documents for consultation and that it was simply a mistake that occurred during the enormous undertaking of reviewing and processing the entire Clinton email collection in a compressed time frame."
A State Department official told CNN Thursday, "State Department staff are working extremely hard to get as many emails are through our FOIA process as possible," but wouldn't elaborate on what was in the legal filing.
Contreras has not yet ruled on the State Department's request for more time. But regardless of his ruling, the State Department is unlikely to meet its full production quota since, as it acknowledges in Thursday's filing, some of the emails flagged for further review had not even been sent to a dozen relevant agencies for review.
"State has experienced some difficulty contacting some of the appropriate agency personnel since the snow storm and is still making arrangements with some of the receiving agencies for secure delivery of the documents," the department lawyers wrote, emphasizing that these represent a small portion of the total remaining emails.
Lawyers for the plaintiff in the Freedom of Information Act case have submitted their own filing opposing the State Department's request for more time.
The delay, they note, pushes the final release back until after the early presidential primaries, causing "grave, incurable harm."
In May, Contreras ordered the State Department to "aspire to abide" by the monthly production schedule. And while the timeline he set is aspirational, the department must also submit reports each month to explain its progress.
