Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign defended their candidate Wednesday as a “passive recipient” of sensitive information that is still the subject of a disagreement among government agencies over just how sensitive or classified those emails were.
Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman, blamed the “culture of classification” that exists among intelligence officials for the fact that hundreds of Clinton’s private emails have been flagged for review because they contain potentially classified material.
“We don’t agree with the judgement of the inspector general’s office in general,” Fallon said, referring to the intelligence community watchdog’s contention that at least two emails were classified at the time they were written.
The Clinton campaign has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that Clinton sent or received any emails that were marked classified or that contained information that should have been classified at the time.
“We have stressed the fact that the emails contained no markings whatsoever that would have designated the material as classified,” Fallon said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters.
The campaign convened the call in response to a Fox News report that indicated two of the emails that touched off the FBI probe involved aides’ discussion of Benghazi.
However, the two emails were not among the sample examined by the intelligence community inspector general and therefore not included in the materials found to contain “top secret” intelligence. That finding prompted the FBI to take custody of the server Clinton used to house her emails.
