In another Fox News exclusive, Catherine Herridge reports that according to two sources, “at least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server” contained highly sensitive reporting of human intelligence sources engaged in ongoing operations, known as “HCS-O” in the intelligence community. “This is the most sensitive category,” Herridge said, “because of the jeopardy to the source.”
Both sources are familiar with the intelligence community inspector general’s January 14 letter to Congress, advising the Oversight committees that intelligence beyond Top Secret — known as Special Access Program (SAP) — was identified in the Clinton emails, as well the supporting documents from the affected agencies that owned the information and have final say on classification.
According to a December 2013 policy document released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “The HSC-0 compartment (Operations) is used to protect exceptionally fragile and unique IC (intelligence community) clandestine HUMINT operations and methods that are not intended for dissemination outside of the originating agency.”
It is not publicly known whether the information contained in the Clinton emails also revealed who the human source was, their nationality or affiliation.
Dan Maguire, former Special Operations strategic planner for Africom, told Fox News the disclosure of sensitive material impacts national security and exposes U.S. sources.
“There are people’s lives at stake. Certainly in an intel SAP, if you’re talking about sources and methods, there may be one person in the world that would have access to the type of information contained in that SAP,” he said.
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Former CIA official Charles Faddis told Fox News earlier this week that these types of intel “are the crown jewels of the American intelligence community of the United States government.” He said that the information is compromised, the United States could suffer serious national security damage, and people could die.
The ex-CIA official said there is “zero ambiguity — none” about the impropriety of SAP-level intelligence being housed on an unsecure private email server. Faddis added that the very existence of that information on her server means that highly classified information must have been moved off of a “completely separate channel” under a process that is “specifically forbidden.” If you had done this while working at the CIA, Hemmer asked, what would’ve happened to you? Faddis’ response: “My career’s over, I lose my clearance, I lose my job, and then I go to prison, probably for a very long time.” Fades explained that the “consequences are enormous” when information at this level of secrecy is made vulnerable to foreign penetration. “The reason this stuff is in this channel is because it’s going to do incredible damage to US national security if it gets out in the open. That’s why we protect it this way.” When Hemmer inquired whether Hillary’s conduct could have cost lives, Faddis didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Without question,” he asserted.
Also, according to Herridge, the “spillage” of classified information “is greater than the ‘several dozen’ emails identified in the January 14 letter to Congress.”
The source said that the “several dozen” refers to the main or principal email thread identified by reviewers, not the number of times that classified information was forwarded, replied to or copied to people who did not have a “need-to-know” using unsecured communication channels — in this case a personal server. More than one Special Access Program was affected.
Meanwhile, more and more people are asking if Hillary Clinton too big for jail. This national security expert says nope.
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