Clinton Email Probe Recalls Past Scrutiny Over Classified Information
But few top officials ever face criminal prosecution for breaking the rules or the laws on classified information. There's a reason for that, according to secrecy expert Steve Aftergood.
STEVE AFTERGOOD: There's a hierarchy. The secretary of state, for example, has been personally delegated presidential authority to decide what is classified and what can be declassified. Someone who's two or three tiers below her in the bureaucracy does not have that same authority.
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MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: The Justice Department's inspector general has found that Alberto Gonzales mishandled top secret documents.
JOHNSON: Investigators said Gonzales improperly stored notes on some of the most sensitive issues in the George W. Bush presidency - the detainee interrogation program and the warrantless wiretap program.
But no one outside the government apparently got their hands on the materials, and the Justice Department declined to prosecute him. That makes sense to former prosecutor Amy Jeffress.
AMY JEFFRESS: There are many other alternatives for people who violate these rules, and criminal punishment should only be used in the, you know, most serious cases.
JOHNSON: That means, she says, targeting officials who had a bad intent for charges that carry jail time. And there are big questions about whether the FBI will find that bad intent in the Clinton case.