The CIA has told US Congress that the name of an alleged secret agency source, mentioned but then partially redacted by the US Department of State from an e-mail received on former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private server was not considered by the agency to be secret at all.
At issue is Moussa Koussa, a one-time intelligence chief for former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and the question of whether or not his name should have been treated as a secret in an e-mail Clinton received four years ago from a close confidant.
US Republicans, who are trying to show Clinton mishandled classified information while serving as chief diplomat, have argued that Koussa’s name should not have been included in the e-mail she received on her private server from Sidney Blumenthal.
Photo: Reuters
However, the CIA, weighing in after the Republicans made their accusation earlier this month, has told lawmakers that Koussa’s name was not classified, according to correspondence between the spy agency and officials of the US House of Representatives panel set up to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a US diplomatic facility and nearby spy base in Benghazi, Libya.
After months of delays and political machinations, Clinton is scheduled to appear before the House Benghazi committee tomorrow to answer questions about her handling of the 2012 attacks, her controversial private e-mail server and the Libya policy of the administration of US President Barack Obama.
After reviewing Clinton’s e-mails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the Department of State made numerous redactions, declaring that in some cases, the material should be considered classified.
Earlier this month, in a reference to Koussa, the Benghazi committee chairman, Republican Trey Gowdy, complained that Clinton, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential campaign, had received an e-mail on her private server in March 2011 with the name of “a human source.”
That represents “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security, but also human lives,” Gowdy said.
“Armed with that information, secretary Clinton forwarded the e-mail to a colleague — debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private e-mail address,” he added.
Sources familiar with the redaction process said the Department of State did redact Koussa’s name from the e-mail in question, but that the department had done this as part of standard practice to protect the privacy of individuals and not because the department considered the data classified.
In his letter to Gowdy on Sunday, US Representative Elijah Cummings, the Benghazi committee’s top Democrat, accused Gowdy of trying to “inflate” the significance of the redacted information and suggested that the “standard operating procedure” of the Benghazi committee had “become to put out information publicly that is inaccurate and out of context in order to attack secretary Clinton for political reasons.”
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