Both Hillary Clinton and the White House on Friday downplayed the existence of some classified information that was found in Clinton’s emails, even after Clinton had said repeatedly that she never sent any classified data in the personal email system she used.
The State Department released nearly 300 pages of Clinton’s emails to the public, an attempt to start the process of releasing all of her work-related emails that she had been holding on her own personal server.
The release immediately made it clear that in one of her emails, the names of some suspects in the 2012 attacking on the U.S. Consulate in Libya were mentioned. Those names were redacted from the emails released by State today.
But while the government said that information was classified, it argued that it’s common for some information to be classified just as it’s being prepared for release. Both Clinton and the White House indicated that because the information wasn’t classified at the time, it’s still accurate to say she never sent any classified information.
“I’m aware that the FBI has asked that a portion of one email be held back,” Clinton told reporters in New Hampshire. “That happens in the process of Freedom of Information Act responses.”
When asked if she was concerned that this information was later deemed to be classified, and was on a private server she owned, Clinton said simply, “No.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest took the same line, and said classifying some information does happen when these kinds of Freedom of Information Act requests for information are processed.
“The fact is that when these kinds of emails are reviewed for public release, consistent with FOIA standards, it’s not uncommon for the materials included in the review to be classified based on current events,” he said. “So it’s not uncommon for information that was previously unclassified to, upon later review and based on changing events in the world, be deemed classified.”
It wasn’t immediately clear why the names of the Benghazi suspects were deleted. Earnest said to ask the FBI.
“This was a determination in this case that was made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and for questions about their decision to make this classified, I’d refer you to them,” he said.
But when contacted by the Washington Examiner, the FBI said it was surprised to hear that it was being asked to comment. “Really?” asked an FBI official when told about what Earnest said.
The FBI then told the Examiner to ask the State Department why the information was redacted.
