Hillary signed State Department contract saying it was HER job to know if documents were classified top secret, and laid out criminal penalties for 'negligent handling'
By David Martosko, November 2015
Hillary signed State Department contract saying it was HER job to know if documents were classified top secret, and laid out criminal penalties for 'negligent handling'
- Clinton signed 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement' on her second day at the State Department
- It says she was personally responsible for determining if sensitive documents in her possession were classified at the highest level
- Spelled out criminal laws under which she could be prosecuted
- Hillary has said on the campaign trail that top-secret classified info found on her private email server wasn't classified originally and it wasn't her job to know better
Hillary Clinton's claim that she was unaware top secret documents on her private email server were highly classified took a hit on Friday, with the revelation of a State Department contract she signed in 2009.
The 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,' which Clinton inked during her second day as Secretary of State, declared that she was personally responsible for determining if sensitive documents in her possession were classified at the government's highest level.
'I understand that it is my responsibility to consult with appropriate management authorities in the Department … in order to ensure that I know whether information or material within my knowledge or control that I have reason to believe might be SCI.'
SCI – Sensitive Compartmented Information – is the highest level of 'top secret' classification, applying to information so sensitive because of the sources and methods used to obtain it that it can only be viewed in a special room, hardened against electronic eavesdropping, constructed for that purpose.
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The agreement Clinton signed in 2009, which warns against 'negligent handling' of state secrets, conflicts with her more recent positions on the presidential campaign trail.
Clinton has said none of the hundreds of classified documents found among emails on her unsecured server were classified at the time she sent or received them, and suggested that without a marking from intelligence officials, she wasn't expected to know what is classified.