From The Daily Wire: “On Tuesday, Senator Charles Grassley released a statement slamming former FBI Director James Comey for his failure during the Hillary Clinton investigation to find out that government officials deliberately transmitted classified information on unclassified systems. Grassley stated: The State Department report said: “Instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted via unclassified email were the rare exception and resulted in adjudicated security violations.” That clearly says some individuals deliberately transmitted classified information on unclassified systems. Those individuals were subject to security sanctions but the State Department failed to describe who the violators were and what the sanctions were. Those answers ought to be forthcoming and I intend to follow up. Ensuring the proper handling of highly classified information is an issue that should garner bipartisan support. Grassley noted that he had recently released a report from the State Department that noted Clinton’s use of a non-government server for government business caused 588 security violations for mishandling classified information. He continued, “If the average American did that, they’d lose their clearance, their job, and might even go to jail.” Grassley pointed out Comey’s July 5, 2016, public statement exonerating Clinton. He noted that Comey’s initial draft stated, ‘“There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the private email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified material” as well as “Similarly, the sheer volume of information that was properly classified as Secret at the time it was discussed on email (that is, excluding the up-classified emails) supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that information.” Grassley noted, “Gross Negligence is a criminal standard under Title 18, Section 793.” He pointed out that Comey’s later version stated, “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
