Pompeo State Dept. punishes 15 Hillary Clinton staffers over email scandal

Hillary Clinton in a campaign event of Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in 2014. (Marc Nozell/Flickr)

Hillary Clinton’s current and former employees committed two dozen security violations involving her emails, the State Department revealed this week.

In a letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley who is heading the security review of Hillary Clinton’s emails, State Department Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs Mary Elizabeth Taylor said 15 people were involved in committing the security violations and infractions, Fox News reported Tuesday.

“To this point, the Department has assessed culpability to 15 individuals, some of whom were culpable in multiple security incidents,” the letter said. “DS [Department of State] has issued 23 violations and 7 infractions incidents. … This number will likely change as the review progresses.”

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Taylor added that individuals will face consequences if they’re found responsible for one security violation or at least three infractions. In those instances, State Department officials “forwarded the outcome to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Office of Personnel Security and Suitability (DS/PSS), to be placed in the individuals’ official security file,” she noted in the letter.

Current employees who carried out the violations and infractions are also referred to the Bureau of Human Resources.

“All valid security incidents are reviewed by DS and taken into account every time an individual’s eligibility for access to classified information is considered,” Taylor added, noting “such security files are kept indefinitely.”

The Department said the review is “serious” and has taken considerably more time than anticipated, but expects a conclusion to the probe before Sept. 1.

“Given the volume of emails provided to the Department from former Secretary Clinton’s private email server, the Department’s process has been necessarily more complicated and complex requiring a significant dedication of time and resources,” Taylor added in the letter.

President Trump reacted to the news in a late Monday night tweet, saying, “Wow! The State Department said it has identified 30 Security Incidents involving current or former employees and their handling of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s Emails. @FoxNews This is really big. Never admitted before. Highly Classified Material. Will the Dems investigate this?”

Wow! The State Department said it has identified 30 Security Incidents involving current or former employees and their handling of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s Emails. @FoxNews This is really big. Never admitted before. Highly Classified Material. Will the Dems investigate this?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019

Former FBI Director James Comey described Clinton and her staff as “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2016.

Clinton was targeted by an email hack carried out by a Chinese state-owned company who was receiving copies of nearly all emails in her account, Fox News reported in August 2018.

Then, Russian intelligence agents also accessed the emails of Clinton and the DNC using spearphishing tactics. They successfully obtained 70 gigabytes of data from her campaign servers, while just 300 gigabytes from the DNC network, TechCrunch reported.

Federal investigators later found that Clinton had transmitted classified information on a private, unsecured server out of her basement, and was even accused of trying to hide the evidence.

Source: Pompeo State Dept. punishes 15 Hillary Clinton staffers over email scandal