Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump. Joe Biden. All three kept classified information in their homes. Which one wins? That is, which of the three is more likely to have caused grave harm to national security?
When dealing with the damage caused by mishandling of classified information, the main question is one about exposure: Who, what, when, and how long?
The “who” part of the sentence is obvious. A document left unintentionally on a desk in an embassy might not be seen, but a document left on a bench and seized locally by police could expose the host country’s intelligence service, or even sell to the highest bidder. But never underestimate cleaning staff; spies love ’em. Locals are allowed to pick through trash and move things around on desks at night in an embassy.
James Bond is all about the “what” and “how much”. Sometimes “what” is all in the eyes of the beholder. The daily telephone call list that the secretary of state keeps is highly classified. While it might not matter to a Russian spy, the secretary calling the leader in Cyprus on Wednesday may be of great importance to him. It will mean a lot to the leader in Greece. This is why intelligence agencies often horsetrade, buying or selling information they find about other countries in exchange for their own.
It is important to consider the “when” aspect of documents. Many documents are correct classified at one time in their history, but lose value as they age. A convoy notification is an example of this. It matters because who knows when the convoy will arrive tomorrow night at midnight? It doesn’t matter if the convoy arrives a month later than everyone else. It can also matter how long a document has been exposed. The more likely someone unauthorized to see it, the greater the chance of them being able to view it.
Given that Trump and Biden both stored classified information in locked closets, it seems like a tossup. (We’ll turn our attention to Clinton and her server later). Investigators would like to know who owned the keys to that lock and, if possible when they were used. What controls were there to stop duplicates? What type of lock was it? Is it pickable? Is it possible that cleaning staff and painters would have been able to handle the lock on their own? Are there access logs or video that could show that staff spent a lot of time in the closets? This is not known about Trump’s or Biden’s closets.
You might also be interested in who packed the boxes with classified information, what orders they were on, and how much exposure they got along the way to those naughty closets. What happened to the information in a truck stop that was not secured overnight in 2010? Who would have thought? “Who” is not just a name, it’s a line of dominoes.
We now have some idea of the “what” that might have been compromised. Clinton, Trump, Biden and others mishandled information at least at the SCI level. This is Sensitive Compartmentalized Info, above Top Secret. SCI is a classification that means the document is classified and that only a limited number of people can see it. It can be said that the documents contained real secrets at the time of their drafting.
The number of documents that could be exposed is next. The Department of Justice has provided a good count in Trump’s case. In January, the National Archives retrieved more than 150 classified documents from Trump. The government was able to recover more than 300 classified documents of Trump during the raid. This resulted in more than 700 webpages of classified material and special access program materials, including clandestine information that could include information on the source himself, the star of intelligence gathering. You can either shoot the spy, arrest him, locate other spies or make him a double agent to relay bogus information to your adversary.
Trump is not quite fair to our contest. The inventories of what was discovered at Mar-a-Lago can be viewed online. However, the pro-Biden media is very cautious about how many documents were found. They use phrases like “several” or “a few dozen”.
Clinton’s case is difficult because it was impossible to just get to a raw number. She destroyed her server before it could become evidence. Her email stash meant that the secret files weren’t all in their original paper covers folders marked “Top Secret” with bright yellow borders. Clinton also removed the markings of classification from many documents during the transfer of them from the State Department’s classified network into her homebrew server.
According to the FBI, 110 contained classified data at the time that they were received or sent, despite being a group of 30.000 emails. Eight chains contained Top Secret information, while others were labeled “special access program material.” Eight chains also contained Confidential information. An additional 2,000 emails were “up-classified”, to make them confidential. The information contained in those emails was not classified when they were sent. This suggests that these messages were drafts in progress and were still being edited before a classification was assigned.
For now, the “what” is up for debate. Although little information is available on the contents of each document trove, The Washington Post claims that one of Trump’s documents detailed a foreign country’s nuclear capability (ironically the DOJ leak revealing the document’s contents suggests that things were more secure at Mar-a-Lago after the search), giving him a slight advantage in this category. Clinton spoke out about Top Secret CIA drone information and authorized drone strikes via Blackberry.
The “when” category refers to Biden’s classified material dating back to his Vice President. The date they were taken out of secure storage is not known, so it’s possible that the material dates back to 2009. This is potentially 14 years worth of paper that has been sitting around, waiting for someone to use it. Trump left the White House on January 2021, and the classified material was retrieved from Mar-a-Lago by August 2022. This is after only 20 months of hiding material for no more that four years.
Both cases are under investigation. However, there is no evidence that anyone else saw classified documents. After classified material was identified inside Mar-a-Lago, the National Archives asked Trump for a better lock. He did. Later, he requested surveillance tapes from the storage room to be turned over to the DOJ.
The most obvious evidence of Trump’s non-exposure is the inability of those concerned to take action against him. Even though Trump moved out in January 2021, claims that he had retained classified documents from the White House started to circulate. Mar-a-Lago’s first evidence of classified information was not discovered until January 2022, when the original docs were seized. The recent search warrant was only eight months behind that date. They might have been more swift if they believed classified material was in imminent threat from America’s enemies.
Exposure is the real money-maker for classified emails, and we finally have a leader. Clinton won because her exposure of classified email over a long period of time was consistent and continuous. Her server was connected via the internet. This meant that a moderately intelligent adversary could literally run a wire between her computer and the Kremlin.
Her server contained at least 110 messages containing classified information. This included email chains classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level. It also included the names and addresses of CIA employees. The FBI discovered that classified intelligence was being stored and transmitted on Clinton’s server. This could have been done by “unauthorized individuals” via cyber intrusion or any other means. GoDaddy issued Clinton’s security certification.
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It is not clear if anyone else was able to see Trump’s or Bidens’s files, but it is almost certain that Clinton’s was compromised. We mean all emails that the secretary of State sent openly and could be read by anyone, which is an intelligence officer’s nightmare.
Clinton did not have any physical security on her server. However, her server was accessible for logging into via web browser, smartphone and tablet. She also communicated with the server on 19 overseas trips, including to Russia or China. The Russians would have had to wait zero seconds to discover that she was using unclassified servers, and then a few ticks to gain access to private email accounts belonging to hostile people with whom Clinton was regularly in contact. The adversary found the drafts and documents in progress extremely valuable. They were able to watch Clinton make decisions about their country.
Clinton said that there was no possibility of compromise and Clinton did not issue a search warrant to seize the server. Enjoy the circus and bread that two men with irresponsible staff and irresponsible ambitions were able to get caught with classified information incorrectly stored. Clinton had done the real damage years before, and he escaped any punishment, not even temporary embarrassment, from a special prosecutor.
