Hey Hillary, Did You Know Craig And Sheila Broke Up?

On March 30, 2017 Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:

The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the administrative body within the State Department that handles security clearance investigations, suspensions, and if needed, revocations. During the course of the Committee’s investigation into Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and the impact of her private server on the Freedom of Information Act, on February 16, 2016 then-Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Greg Starr met with Committee staff. Assistant Director Starr informed my staff that Secretary Clinton’s security clearance, and those of her staff, had not been suspended or revoked because Diplomatic Security was waiting until the FBI concluded its criminal investigation before beginning an administrative review. On March 24, 2016, Committee staff met again with Mr. Starr and asked the same questions and received the same responses. I have repeatedly [emphasis mine] asked the State Department whether Secretary Clinton and her associates had their clearances suspended or revoked to which the Obama Administration refused to respond.[1] Recently, the State Department informed the Committee that six additional Secretary Clinton staff at State were designated as her research assistants which allowed them to retain their clearances after leaving the Department.

On July 5, 2016, Director Comey announced that “after a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision.”[2] Director Comey stated that Secretary Clinton and staff were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” and “there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information…”[3] Director Comey said,

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 the matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.[4]

However, Director Comey did not recommend criminal prosecution. In announcing that decision, he also noted that “to be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.”[5]

It is unclear what steps the State Department has taken to impose administrative sanctions.

After two years Senator Grassley finally received a response from Charles S. Faulkner, Acting Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs for the State Department stating, ”At her request, former Secretary Clinton’s security clearance was administratively withdrawn on August 30, 2018.  On September 20, 2018 security clearances for Cheryl Mills, aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa and aaa aaaa. As we previously informed the Committee, these individuals had been granted access to classified information through a request made by Secretary Clinton designating them as researchers, per E.O. 13526, Sec. 4.4(a)(2).

So, three-and-a-half years — or 1,279 days — after The New York Times exposed her use of a private email server to conduct official U.S. diplomatic business, she finally lost her security clearance.

In the months after the Times story, subsequent reporting disclosed that Clinton had sent and received more than 50,000 emails using the private server and private email addresses. When the government asked her for copies of the emails, she claimed an estimated 33,000 of them were personal and were thus not turned over to investigators.

Clinton may yet be required to submit to cross-examination on the email scandal under oath as a result of litigation originally filed by nonprofit government watchdog, Judicial Watch.

In August of this year, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance had been revoked and also named other current and former officials President Trump would target with clearance removals. The list includes former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, among others.

UPDATE:  Welcome Bad Blue Uncensored News readers.  Doug Ross honored us today with his linky-love and we thank him.