Thanks.
§1924. Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material
(a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
(b) For purposes of this section, the provision of documents and materials to the Congress shall not constitute an offense under subsection (a).
(c) In this section, the term “classified information of the United States†means information originated, owned, or possessed by the United States Government concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States that has been determined pursuant to law or Executive order to require protection against unauthorized disclosure in the interests of national security.
This is the statute, I believe, for which Gen. Petraeus was convicted.
But I’m not sure that “knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location” pertains to removing the classified markings off the documents themselves.
Rather, it addresses the act of taking classified documents from a secure approved location and storing them at an unsecure, unapproved location.
The "marking" are not really significant. I do not think you will find a statute which talking about unauthorized removing of "markings".
The documents matter. The contents of the documents, that is. The State Dept had documents which contained classified information. Therefore, they were marked. Hillary wanted those documents to be in an unauthorized location (big NO-NO according to statute). In order to facilitate getting the classified documents into an unauthorized location, Hillary instructed her employee to remove markings. This is bad.
It's not the removal of the markings. It's the re-location of the documents.
Her intent was CLEARLY in violation of statute.