Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Thursday rejected the idea that he concocted a plan to have an inspector general release details to the public about classified information on her private email server, and said the information on her emails was so secret, even he wasn’t allowed to look at it.
“Fascinatingly, even though I’m chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I don’t even have access to SAP material,” he said, referring to “special access programs” information that Inspector General Charles McCullough III said was on Clinton’s email server. McCullough told Corker and Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., in a January 14 letter that Clinton’s email server held SAP information that was considered even more classified than “top secret” information.
“Burr and I both have been looking at this issue but we’ve been looking at it for some time, very quietly, and certainly not to create any kind of fanfare but just to understand how we make sure that — whether it’s Republican, a Democrat, or independent — that we are handling these matters in the most appropriate way,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Corker also denied leaking the letter, although he allowed that a congressional source probably first tipped off the press. “I will say this: the letter ended up going to a lot of people [in Congress],” he said.
Clinton’s camp accused the inspector general of conspiring with Republicans to smear the Democratic front-runner after the letter was leaked to the press.
“I think this was a very coordinated leak,” spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN. “Two months ago there was a … report that directly challenged the finding of this inspector general, and I don’t think he liked that very much. So I think that he put two Republican senators up to sending him a letter so that he would have an excuse to resurface the same allegations he made back in the summer that have been discredited.”
The top Democrat on Corker’s committee, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Thursday he was reserving judgment on claims being made from Clinton’s campaign.
“I think that everybody wants to get this information understood and I’ll withhold judgement at this particular moment,” Cardin told the Examiner. “I’m not going to add to more speculation until I know more facts.”
Cardin made the comments en route to a secure location in the Capitol, where he was to meet with Corker to discuss the latest developments on Clinton’s use of a private email server throughout her tenure as secretary of state.
