that is what I was saying. She was responsible and any defense of “just now regrading to classified” is NOT a defense. It was born classified and remains so until officially declassified. Merely removing classification markings or retyping it with out classification markings does not “declassify” a classified document.
I spend most of my military career working with classified matters and I am NOT going to cut HRC any slack on this.
Not only does removing the markings not declassify it, I’m pretty sure it’s a crime.
18 U.S. Code § 2071
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
This woman is disqualified from holding any federal office, and is qualified to be sitting in federal prison.
This question of whether the material was classified at the time of transmission is easily settled by bringing out the classification guide.
For those unfamiliar with classification, there are “classification guides” which dictate what is classified and the classification level along with other information. For example, a class guide might say that a weapons range is secret but it’s weight is unclassified.
If these emails are classified, then bring out the class guide that governs them. If the class guide is dated earlier than the message, then the material was classified when it was sent.