Patrick Kennedy, a State Department official, asked the FBI to declassify Clinton’s private emails stored on a private server in exchange to allow additional FBI agents in foreign positions.
The FBI and the State Department have denied the existence of such deal, which is now labeled as a “quid pro quo” for both parties. The documents also reveal that Hillary Clinton disregarded security protocols while abroad and did not meet with local ambassadors. The files name a group named “The Shadow Government” which apparently met up to try and make public all of Clinton’s emails, but the FBI did not concede and instead chose to reveal the contents by parts.
Shady government tactics to help Clinton
Apparently, Kennedy called the FBI to try and persuade them to change the email’s classification and to make a deal out of the situation. It seems that Kennedy entering the picture was to try and minimize the implications for Clinton of how she managed state classified information during her time as secretary of state. Currently, the U.S. government forbids its officials from transmitting classified information on unsafe channels.
An anonymous FBI official revealed that Kennedy was told that his request would be considered if he agreed into allowing more FBI agents to be sent to Iraq. This information was confirmed by anonymous sources from both the FBI and the State Department.
It was also reported that the emails that Kennedy tried to declassify were about the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. Finally, the FBI refused Kennedy’s proposal and did not declassify the emails.
Donald Trump has made its way by blaming Clinton for her irresponsible way of handling classified information, which could ostensibly put national security at risk, especially when she was holding the position of secretary of state. Trump has repeatedly called for Clinton’s arrest and responded to the reveal of the FBI documents with a single-word tweet where he wrote: “Unbelievable.”
At first, Clinton said that no classified information was allocated on her email servers, but then the opposite was proven and she passed on to say that no classified information could have gotten into the hands of enemies of the state.
FBI Director James Comey also delivered a statement back in July, explaining what the bureau had found and what it recommended the Department of Justice to do.
He referred to Clinton’s handling of the emails as “extremely careless.” But in essence, he also said that no conscious prosecutor should sentence Clinton for her crimes, which can be considered relatively minor.
“From the 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined 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 of those chains contained secret information at the time, and eight contained confidential information at the time,” stated Comey.
Source: The Washington Post