Hillary Clinton braces for a new wave of criticism ahead of crucial voting in Iowa on Monday after revelation that emails she received or exchanged on her private email account as secretary of state contain “top secret” information.
The Democratic presidential front-runner has seen her rating declined in part due to the controversy over her use of private account for official correspondence. She is locked in a close fight with party rival Bernie Sanders who is leading poll for Iowa vote.
Releasing a new set of emails on Friday, the State Department said that it was withholding the seven email chains that contained 22 separate messages because the information in them has been classified as “top secret”.
This is for the first time the State Department has acknowledged that top information passed through Clinton’s private email account.
But, Clinton will likely benefit from the statement by the State Department spokesman John Kirby that those documents were upgraded as top secret at the request of the intelligence community but were not marked classified at the time they were sent.
Clinton has said in the recent past that none of her emails were marked that way when those received or exchanged on her private email. Her Republican rivals do not agree with her and have said she be prosecuted for mishandling national secrets.
While criticizing the classification of those 22 emails as top secret, Clinton’s campaign demanded to make them public, accusing the intelligence community of engaging in “over classification run amok”.
The information is deemed top secret if its leak can cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security. The government bars handling of classified information outside secure government-controlled channels.
Spokesman Kirby told a daily briefing on Friday that his department was focusing on whether information contained in those emails were needed to be classified as such today.
“This is over-classification run amok,” Clinton’s campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Twitter. “We adamantly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails.
Irrespective of argument over their classification, the new revelation about the emails comes at a bad time for Clinton who faces a tough opponent in Sanders whose campaign has gained momentum in recent months.
Appearing in a presidential debate alongside Clinton in October, Sanders had dismissed the email issue, saying that people were “sick and tired” over the issue of emails.
After the latest hue and cry over the emails, Sanders appeared to be holding his previous position. “There is a legal process in place which should proceed and not be politicized,” he said.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump, however, chose not to heed Sander’s advice. “The new e-mail release is a disaster for Hillary Clinton. At a minimum, how can someone with such bad judgement be our next president,” Trump tweeted.
