posted at 5:01 pm on November 7, 2016 by Ed Morrissey
“The State Department was her oyster,” a State Department security contractor told Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Pamela Brown about Hillary Clinton’s disregard for protocols and laws designed to protect classified information and prevent influence peddling. Dave Whitnah emphasized that everyone who comes in contact with highly classified material gets briefed on those laws and protocols, and moreover, understood that high-ranking officials know that they are the top targets for foreign intelligence services. A second contractor told Fox that he helped write those protocols, and that the exposure of classified material had to have been intentional.
It didn’t matter, though, because Whitnah notes that the law never applied to Hillary or her inner circle:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Two State Department contractors, with decades of experience protecting the United States’ most sensitive secrets, are speaking out for the first time about Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and how the rules for government security clearance holders did not seem to apply to Clinton and her team.
“The State Department was her oyster and it was great for the [Clinton] foundation and great for the Clintons to be able to have such a great position,” Dave Whitnah told Fox News. …
[Amel] Smith says his 30 years of experience includes serving in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, before becoming a counter-intelligence and counter-espionage investigator at State tracking down breaches of classified materials. He reviewed some of the FBI witness interviews from the Clinton email investigation with Fox News, and questioned those who claimed not to have the proper training in handling sensitive information.
“I hear things like, well, I forgot, um, I don’t know that I was trained, I don’t know this. You know — every single person that had access to that information when it was sent is in violation,” Smith emphasized.
The excuse that classified information accidentally ended up on Hillary’s private and unsecured e-mail system is just hogwash, Smith argued:
But more than 2,100 emails with classified information, and at least 22 at the “top secret” level, passed through Clinton’s unsecured private server. Asked how it happened, Smith said, “Personally, there had to have been somebody moving classified information from C-LAN, C-LAN again is Secret, Confidential only, and JWICS. JWICS is where all top secret information is.”
At this point, these observations will probably have little impact on Hillary’s ambitions — but they should. Smith’s correct that any spillage of classified information — even a single instance — is a violation. Hundreds of them add up to a grossly negligent approach to information security at best. Put into the context of Hillary’s clear intent to evade legitimate oversight over her work at the State Department with a secret e-mail system she kept from the State Department and Congress until forced into admitting it, the criminal intent becomes clear to everyone.
Well, almost everyone, except for those tasked with enforcing the law in an even-handed manner. The Department of Justice has made it clear that the law doesn’t apply to Hillary Clinton, or those who work for her.
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