Hours before Hillary Clinton was set to deliver a major foreign policy address Thursday, the Republican National Committee released copies of classified nondisclosure agreements signed by a pair of Clinton’s top aides.
The agreements, obtained by the RNC through the Freedom of Information Act, indicated both Clinton staffers had been specifically instructed on how to handle “marked or unmarked” classified material upon their arrival at the State Department in early 2009.
Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning, and Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s former information technology specialist, both signed the classified information nondisclosure forms.
By signing the document, Sullivan acknowledged that “negligent handling” of classified information could carry consequences. Sullivan reportedly sent the highest number of now-classified emails through Clinton’s private server.
Pagliano’s involvement in setting up and maintaining Clinton’s email network has come under fire in the months since reports surfaced of his simultaneous employment by the State Department and by the Clintons as a personal aide.
Pagliano has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions about the server in a closed-door congressional hearing and ahead of a deposition slated for Monday.
“Hillary Clinton endangered our national security and created a culture where top staffers went rogue, silenced career officials and hid a reckless email scheme that placed her political ambitions above all else,” Reince Priebus, chairman of the RNC, said of the nondisclosure forms. “These records show that like Clinton, her closest aides did not meet their responsibilities to protect classified information regardless of whether it was marked.”
Clinton has repeatedly argued that because nothing she sent or received was “marked” classified, she did not break any laws governing the treatment of sensitive government material. She maintains that the more than 2,000 emails from her server that have been classified by the State Department were only considered classified after they were written.
