Declassification dates on dozens of Hillary Clinton’s private emails are tied to the date the original emails were sent, raising questions about the State Department’s assertion that any classifications it has made have been done retroactively.
Government documents are typically slated to be declassified 10 years after their initial classification, but more than 30 emails already published in part by the State Department are set to be declassified 10 years from the time they were written, not from the time they were supposedly designated as classified for the first time.
“The declassify dates suggest either that the department did not follow standard government classification regulations” or that the agency actually considered the data classified the day it was transmitted, according to a Reuters report.
The White House information security officer suggested the declassification timing might indicate the information was not retroactively classified, but was actually classified at the time it originated.
Clinton has repeatedly argued in her defense that she did not send or receive anything that was classified at the time. However, the inspector general for the intelligence community had highlighted emails that are believed to have been classified “when originated.”
The State Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
