(CNSNews.com) – FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday his investigation found that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent and received emails that contained information classified “Top Secret/Special Access Program” in seven email chains.
“Seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program at the time they were sent and received. Those chains involve Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails about those same matters,” Comey said.
Comey said while there was no “clear evidence” that “Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” evidence suggests that they were “extremely careless” in handling very sensitive, highly classified information.
“For example,” he said, “seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the top secret special access program at the time they were sent and received. Those chains involve Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails about those same matters.
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Comey added.
“In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as secret by the U.S. intelligence community at the time it was discussed on email. That is excluding any later upclassified emails,” Comey said, referring to emails that were later deemed classified after they were sent or received.
“None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning, because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail,” he said.