The Patriot Post® · Sometimes, People Are Punished for Sending Classified Email

Here’s an interesting contrast. On the one hand, we have a Marine officer who argues he was trying to warn of dire consequences and was subsequently punished for communicating classified material via an unclassified email network. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton — for no other reason than political expediency — appears to have routinely communicated similarly sensitive (and probably even more important) information via unclassified means and thinks she’s above reproach. Her lawyer’s recent claim that “nothing she sent was marked as classified” is about par for her defense. Of course it wasn’t marked as classified, since emails generated and circulated on unclassified networks — particularly personally operated ones — don’t even allow the option of choosing a classified label, unlike the classified networks that allow you to chose anything from “unclassified” up to the highest clearance for that network (usually “secret” with caveats). That said, while the comparison is instructive, we’re not particularly sympathetic to the Marine major. There’s probably more to the story and we don’t believe a panel of officers would arbitrarily seek to “retaliate” against him (as he alleges) because of his views. If they recommended discharge, he likely communicated more than just a warning of a potential threat. Just as Hillary almost certainly communicated more sensitive or classified information (not just documents) than she’ll ever admit.