Hillary Clinton's 'top secret' emails reportedly discussed a news article about drones

U.S. conducted first airstrike on ISIS from Turkish base on Tuesday

(Image credit: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)

published 14 August 2015

On Monday, Charles McCullough, the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community, told Congress that two of Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as secretary of state had been judged to be "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information," one of the top classification levels. One of those two emails may obliquely refer to highly classified material, several U.S. officials tell The Associated Press, or it may contain information gleaned from other, unclassified sources.

The other email, though, seems to have been classified "Top Secret/SCI" because it discussed a news article about the U.S. drone program in Pakistan, widely reported on but officially considered a secret. The article was sent from the CIA, but "a Clinton adviser follows up by dancing around a top secret in a way that could possibly be inferred as confirmation," AP says, noting that several other officials "described this claim as tenuous." You can read more about the "secrets" at AP.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.