Legal columnist Dan Abrams claimed that former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not per se violate any laws. The observation was in connection to the investigations currently being made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Clinton's email practices and the emails' classified contents.
The government disclosed Jan. 29, Friday, that presidential candidate Clinton has 22 emails with contents that can be categorized as highly classified, the Sacramento Bee reported the same day.
The Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus were examining if the information in the emails were classified at the time the emails were sent. Seven email chains, however, were not released by the authorities due to their "top secret" nature, the paper noted, citing the Associated Press. The chain, comprising of 37 pages, has an intelligence official saying things about "special access programs" or clandestine programs, the paper added.
"The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information," said State Department spokesman John Kirby. Officials remain mum about the contents of the top secret emails or if Clinton was the sender of these.
Kirby added that the Freedom of Information Act review will have the State Department determine if the emails are needed to be classified at present, Talking Points Memo reported the same day. The State Department will examine separately the past classification of the emails, he said.
Columnist Abrams, however, commented that, as of the reports released regarding the examination, Clinton did not violate any laws, only rules and regulations, the Independent Journal reported Jan. 31. The violation pertains to the use of private e-mail accounts and servers prohibited by the State Department.
The main law that Clinton allegedly violated was 18 U.S.C.A § 793. It states that: "Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense ... (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer -- shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
Abrams said that this law, if applied to Clinton's case, would be a "stretch, at best." He added that it would be difficult to prove the case, if it pushes through.
