Hillary Clinton told ABC News Tuesday that she did not "know the specifics" of an email server she handled that officials say contains top-secret information.
Yesterday, a special intelligence review revealed that Clinton sent two emails that contained top-secret information when they were received in 2009 and 2011, according to the New York Times. ABC News reports that the emails were about drones and North Korea’s nuclear program.
According to President Obama’s 2009 executive order, "Top Secret" information is defined as "information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security."
ABC anchor David Muir asked Clinton how emails that are considered top secret today were not considered too sensitive to send at the time. Clinton said that "sometimes events proceed in a way" that "all of a sudden everything is classified."
Muir asked whether details about North Korea’s nuclear program would have been considered classified. Clinton replied "there’s a lot of public information about their nuclear program."
"I don’t know the specifics about the one that they are claiming is classified," she said.
Clinton repeated in the interview with Muir that she "did not send or receive any information that was marked classified at the time," a stance she assumed after the FBI began investigating her email account. Initially, Clinton insisted that she did not handle any classified information on her email.
The State Department has maintained the position that classification is not a "black and white" issue. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that review of the emails is ongoing, and that the department has not yet determined whether Clinton’s emails contained sensitive national intelligence.
"At this time, any conclusion about the classification of the documents in question would be premature," he said.