Clinton Email Shows She Sent Information Regarding Identity Of CIA Source Over Private Server

Clinton Email

Trey Gowdy has released further email from Hillary Clinton. Considering the source of the release there is always the possibility that he is being selective in what is being released, but this does look bad for Clinton regardless of how selective Gowdy was being. The email released indicates that the identity of a top CIA intelligence source was disclosed in her private email. Regardless of whether this was marked classified, this is sensitive information which should be classified and which should not have been included in email sent from her private server. Michael Isikoff, an investigative reporter previously with NBC News and Newsweek, and now at Yahoo! News reports:

Hillary Clinton used her private email account to pass along the identity of one of the CIA’s top Libyan intelligence sources, raising new questions about her handling of classified information, according to excerpts from previously undisclosed emails released Thursday by Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

On March 18, 2011, Sidney Blumenthal — Clinton’s longtime friend and political adviser — sent the then secretary of state an email to her private account that contained apparently highly sensitive information he had received from Tyler Drumheller, a former top CIA official with whom Blumenthal at the time had a business relationship.

“Tyler spoke to a colleague currently at CIA, who told him the agency had been dependent for intelligence from [redacted due to sources and methods],” the email states, according to Gowdy’s letter.

The redacted information was “the name of a human source,” Gowdy wrote to his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and was therefore “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community.”

“Armed with that information, Secretary Clinton forwarded the email to a colleague — debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private email address,” wrote Gowdy in a letter to Cummings.

Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent or received classified information on her private email server “that was marked classified at the time that it was sent or received.” But the FBI, at the request of the inspectors general for the intelligence community and the State Department, is investigating the handling of classified information on the private server.

And while there is nothing that indicates that the email from Blumenthal (who was not a government employee) was marked classified at the time Clinton received it, the sensitive nature of its contents should have been a red flag and never should have been passed along, according to a former veteran CIA officer.

“She is exposing the name of a guy who has a clandestine relationship with the CIA on her private, unprotected server,” said John Maguire, who served for years as one of the CIA’s top Mideast officers.

In addition, he noted, the email should trigger a “crimes report” by the CIA to the Justice Department seeking an investigation into who within the agency revealed the information to Drumheller.

“Unless Tyler was blowing smoke, it’s an unauthorized disclosure of information,” said John Rizzo, a former CIA general counsel. “And it’s the most sensitive kind of classified information — the identity of a human source. She should have told Blumenthal, ‘delete this — and don’t send me that again.’ And then she should have reported it to State Department security.”

This is only one of a growing list of examples of classified information having been sent over Clinton’s server despite her claims that there was no classified information. Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system is now under investigation by the FBI.