Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates does not fault Hillary Clinton for using a unsecure, private email server that contained classified information.
“It is tough sometimes,” Gates said Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week.” “If you don’t have any markings on a piece of paper, it is tough sometimes to tell whether it’s classified or not.”
More than 2,000 of those emails are now marked classified. The FBI is investigating whether Clinton mishandled classified information during her time at the State Department. Clinton says the probe is a “security review” not aimed at her and notes none of the emails in her account were classified at the time they were sent.
Gates said that sometimes emails and other pieces of information are over-classified, and that when he served in government, even he didn’t always know if a document should have been marked as “Top Secret.”
“The truth is, things are over-classified and sometimes I would get something and it would be classified Secret or Top Secret,” Gates said. “And I would look at somebody and say ‘I’m about to tell a foreign leader what is on this of paper that’s marked Top Secret. And that’s going to do serious damage to the United States? Why are you giving it to me as a talking point if it’s classified Top Secret?'”
Gates’ remarks echo other Clinton defenders, including President Obama. Obama said last month on “Fox News Sunday,” that “there’s classified, and then there’s classified.”
But Gates’ remarks carry extra weight because he is widely seen a nonpartisan national security expert. He worked under three Republican presidents and stayed on as defense secretary under Obama after starting the job under former President George W. Bush.
