The State Department this week deemed two more of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s emails to contain classified information, releasing redacted versions Friday, just days before Election Day.
The messages appear to contain U.S. government policy memos toward Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, preparing Mrs. Clinton for phone calls with leaders of those two nations. Information gleaned from foreign governments, as well as U.S. information about other governments, is supposed to be considered classified from the start.
In these instances, like nearly every other of the more than 2,500 messages now deemed classified, there were no markings at the time — a factor Mrs. Clinton’s defenders say excuse her from liability for having sent them over her secret, but unprotected account.
Both of the new messages were not part of the set Mrs. Clinton belatedly returned to the department. Instead they were recovered by the FBI in its investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s mishandling of classified material.
The messages were sent on Nov. 26, 2010, by Mrs. Clinton’s top personal aide, Huma Abedin, whose own emailing practices have come under scrutiny. Ms. Abedin was one of the few people who had access to an account on Mrs. Clinton’s secret server.
Both messages were classified at the “confidential” level, which is the lowest level of secrecy.
They were part of 74 messages released Friday — the last release before the election.
Other messages in the new set of emails show how often Mrs. Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, held policy conversations.
At one point Chelsea Clinton asked her mom to see if she could get the U.S. military hospital ship helping Haitians after the earthquake there to perform physical therapy and help fit prosthetics. The Clinton daughter said there was a massive need on the part of Haitians, and a desire by the medical staff, but they were being pressed to discharge patients from the hospital ship as soon as they were physically able — leaving no time for the rehabilitative care.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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