CBS: Intel Officials Say It ‘Doesn’t Matter’ if Material Is Stamped Classified To Be Classified
KING: “Hillary Clinton’s campaign is getting more aggressive this morning. It rejects the idea that she knew e-mails in her private server had classified information. Clinton’s lawyer confirmed on Wednesday that the server was, indeed, erased. In an interview a campaign spokeswoman had trouble explaining how.”
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HEILEMANN: “So the question is, what did she ask to be done with those e-mails?”
PALMIERI: “To be deleted and beyond that I don’t know. This is like everyone's an expert on inflating football and now everybody’s an expert on wiping servers. Like I don't know how that all works.”
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KING: “Jan Crawford is in Washington where we're learning more about two of Clinton’s e-mails. Jan, good morning.”
CRAWFORD: “Well, good morning. So those two e-mails are giving us an idea of the kind of information that was being exchanged on her private server. Both of them were uncovered in the ongoing congressional investigation into the attack in Benghazi, Libya. And intelligence officials say they contained classified information.”
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CRAWFORD (voice-over): “The first e-mail from April 2011 was forwarded to Clinton by aide Huma Abedin. It cited intelligence reports from the U.S. African command on Libyan troop strength and movements. The second forwarded by A. Jacob Sullivan outlined reports of ‘possible arrests in connection with the Benghazi attack. The e-mails are among the some 30,000 Clinton turned over to the State Department from her private server. On Monday, the State Department said it had reviewed 20 percent of those and flagged 305 as ‘potentially containing classified information.’ The concern in the intelligence community is that classified e-mails on a private server could be more easily hacked order compromised. Clinton has insisted she did not send classified e-mail through her private server or send e-mail that was marked private. Something campaign press secretary Brian Fallon reiterated on Wednesday.”
FALLON: “The State Department is on record saying none of the information in that e-mail was classified at the time it was sent and that's consistent with what Hillary Clinton and our campaign has been saying from the beginning.”
CRAWFORD (voice-over): “But it is not just Clinton's private server that may have contained classified information. The State Department filed court papers Wednesday saying it "does not believe any personal computing device was issued by the Department” to Clinton. Dan Ackerman is an editor at CNET.”
ACKERMAN: “Any time you're bringing your own equipment and using it for work purposes, it's not as secure as something that's actually issued by the company because they take those laptops, for example, and the preconfigure them.”
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CRAWFORD: And despite the campaign’s insistence that the e-mails weren't marked classified at the time, intelligence sources say they that doesn't matter. Documents, e-mails, hand-written notes, those can contain classified information and not necessarily be formally stamped classified. Charlie?”
ROSE: “Jan, thanks.”
