A new report shows that, in at least one instance, the information on Hillary Clinton's unsecured personal email server was labeled "HCS-O," which is the designation for the most sensitive category of intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources. Along with that data are the remainder of the 1,340 classified email found on the Clinton home server.
On Sunday, the New York Post revealed that there is an FBI investigation into how the classified information got onto Ms. Clinton's server. The investigation is centering on whether the Democratic Party front-runner's aides cut and pasted it from one of two secure networks and emailed it to Ms. Clinton via the unsecured government network to the Clinton unsecured server. If proved, this could place some of Hillary's closest aids in danger of prosecution.
The Pentagon runs two classified networks: one goes up to the secret level and the other is for top secret and more sensitive information.
The two systems — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) — are not connected to the unclassified system, known as the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). You cannot e-mail from one system to the other, though you can use NIPRNet to send e-mails outside the government.
NIPRNet is the "normal" government email system. Now, unless the movie "Terminator" is a true story and the Skynet computer system became self-aware and arranged for a Terminator T-800 Model 101 cyborg (the one that looks like a dead ringer for Arnold Schwarzenegger) to travel from 2029 to 2011 just to play with classified email, then it had to be a human who transferred the data from one of the closed classified systems to NIPRNet. That is the only way for that information to emailed to Ms. Clinton. Well, not the only way. In the interest of being 100% honest, my son, the science fiction fan, swears it was Skynet and the Terminator.
Somehow, highly classified information from SIPRNet, as well as even the super-secure JWICS, jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 of Clinton’s home e-mails — including several the CIA earlier this month flagged as containing ultra-secret Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs, a subset of SCI.
Raymond Fournier, a veteran Diplomatic Security Service special agent, told the Post that moving information from a classified server to the unsecured network cannot be done by accident as it is a "two-step process." Fournier says there are different ways someone can move the data, but "either way it’s totally illegal.”
This FBI investigation is focusing in on three of Hillary Clinton's top aides: her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills or deputy chiefs Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan. But, the sender wouldn't be the only one liable - Ms. Clinton, as the person receiving the information, would also be in deep trouble.
“Receiving Top Secret SAP intelligence outside secure channels is a mortal sin,” said Chris Farrell, director of investigations for Judicial Watch, the Washington-based public law firm that has successfully sued State for Clinton’s e-mails."
“A regular government employee would be crucified, and they are, routinely,” added Farrell, who as a former Army counterintelligence agent investigated such violations.
If the FBI is able to prove that one or all three of the Clinton aides participated in transferring the secret information, they could be offered a deal to testify against the former secretary of state. On the other hand, if they are proven to be involved, they could decide to throw themselves under the bus and take the hit for Ms. Clinton.
All of this, of course, is dependent on whether or not anybody finds a Terminator T-800 Model 101 cyborg looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger and playing with State Department emails.