The State Department announced Friday that it will not release 22 emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because they contain “top secret” information. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the documents, totaling 37 pages, were not marked classified at the time they were sent. CNN’s Laura Koran says the decision, coming three days before the Iowa caucuses, could provide fodder for Clinton’s political opponents, especially Republicans, who are likely to make note of the emails’ “top secret” designation. Kirby said, “We are aware that there is intense interest in this matter, and we are announcing this decision now because the (Freedom of Information Act) process regarding these emails has been completed. While we have requested a month’s extension to complete the entire review, we did not need the extension for these documents.” A spokesperson for the Intelligence Community’s inspector general declined to comment.
Spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, Brian Fallon, said in a statement that Friday’s development was a case of “over-classification run amok … “We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today.” Asked Friday if he had “certainty and confidence” that Clinton will not be indicted over the email controversy, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said any decision to prosecute Clinton would rest with the Justice Department. Several prominent Republicans, including presidential hopefuls, quickly condemned Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, over Friday’s developments.
The State Department will release another batch of Clinton’s emails Friday, but the release is expected to fall well behind the judge-imposed timetable for producing all of her emails. The emails have been publishing over the last eight months more or less in accordance with a schedule set by Judge Rudolph Contreras, with increasingly large batches uploaded to a State Department website at the end of each month. This month’s release was supposed to be the final one and include just over 9,000 pages of documents — the largest number to date. But last Thursday, the State Department filed a motion to extend the final productions until February 29 because the department had failed to send more than 7,000 pages of those emails to other government agencies for review, only recognizing the mistake earlier this month. That delay was then compounded by a huge snowstorm that shut down the federal government for several days, according to the State Department’s motion.