A newly declassified report contains an apparent discrepancy in what then-FBI Director James Comey said in 2016 about the number of classified documents contained on Hillary Clinton’s unsecured email server dating back to when she led the State Department.
It was a major moment in the 2016 presidential campaign cycle when Comey announced that he would be recommending that the Department of Justice not charge Clinton, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee, with any crimes.
Republicans in Congress had been looking into possible corruption related to Clinton’s time at the State Department and the granting of preferences to the Clinton Foundation, as well as her leadership during the 2012 attack on the U.S consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left the U.S. ambassador and three others dead.
During the process of those inquiries, they had uncovered that Clinton had deleted 30,000 emails from her time as secretary of state under President Barack Obama that were under congressional subpoena.
In a July 5, 2016, news conference, Comey announced, “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
He sought to minimize the nature of the violations, saying, “From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.”
“Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information,” he added.
“Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were ‘up-classified’ to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent,” Comey continued.
James @Comey, July 5, 2016: “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” pic.twitter.com/A82nhT2vf1
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 12, 2022
However, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released a newly declassified 2018 report by then-Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz making no mention of 2,000 emails being later “up-classified.”
“FBI investigation has determined that approximately 2063 emails found on the former Secretary’s private server contain classified information, up to and including information classified at the TOP SECRET//SAP level,” Horowitz’s report said, quoting from a May 27, 2016, FBI attorney memorandum regarding Clinton’s emails.
The number was precise, 2,063, including ones that were top secret/SAP (Special Access Programs, which are highly classified).
In his July 5, 2016, statement to the media, Comey indicated there were 110 emails classified at the time they were sent, with just eight being top secret. Does the 2,063 figure include all of those? And does the “about 2,000” really mean 1,953 (2,063-110)?
Maybe, or are we dealing with far more classified emails than Comey said during his news conference, over 4,000 (including the up-classified) of the 30,000?
The FBI attorney’s May 27, 2016, memorandum made no distinction among the classified emails on Clinton’s home server on whether they were classified at the time they were sent or later.
Regardless, one thing is clear: Clinton brazenly broke the law and should have been prosecuted.
Grassley said on Monday regarding the release of the Horowitz report, “I warned years ago that the Clinton investigation failed to hit the mark, and I’m grateful the American people can finally see the facts for themselves.”
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