State Department officials broke with Hillary Clinton’s email defense for the first time Friday, acknowledging that some of her emails could have been classified at the time they were written, even if they were not marked classified.
“It’s certainly possible … that traffic can be sent that’s not marked appropriately for its classification,” agency spokesman John Kirby said Friday. “That is certainly possible.”
Kirby declined to comment on whether that was the case with the 37 pages of emails the State Department plans to withhold from a batch of records slated for publication later this evening.
The announcement that 22 emails, constituting seven full email chains, had been upgraded to “top secret” earlier Friday electrified an already highly contentious dispute over whether Clinton’s emails were classified at the time they were written.
While Clinton has consistently argued nothing she sent or received was classified at the time it was written, the State Department said Friday it has already opened a probe into whether material in her emails was classified at the time.
“Issues of classification at the time it was sent are now and will be handled in a separate process here at the State Department,” Kirby said.
Agency officials have previously refused to acknowledge that possibility, telling reporters all 1,340 emails that have so far been classified were only upgraded retroactively. The issue of whether the emails were classified then or are only now being upgraded goes to the heart of whether Clinton and her staff broke the law by setting up a private server system.
Clinton’s campaign pushed back on the State Department’s announcement Friday by publicly calling on the agency to release the 22 top secret emails.
But the State Department’s admission Friday that the emails could still have been classified regardless of whether they bore classification markings undermined the core of Clinton’s defense against wrongdoing. She has sought to justify her actions by arguing nothing in her inbox was marked classified.
