Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC’s This Week Sunday to address Friday’s revelation that another 22 emails of hers could not be released by the State Department because they contained highly-classified information.
ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos questioned Clinton about the nondisclosure agreement she signed which laid out criminal penalties for mishandling classified information, an agreement previously reported on by the Washington Free Beacon.
"The nondisclosure agreement you signed as Secretary of State says that that really is not that relevant, it says ‘classified information is marked or unmarked classified,’ and that all of you are trained to treat all of that sensitively and should know the difference," Stephanopoulos said.
"Well, of course. And that’s exactly what I did. I take classified information very seriously. You know you can’t get information off the classified system in the State Department to put onto an unclassified system no matter what that system is. We were very specific about that. And when you receive information, of course, there has to be some marking, some indication that someone down the chain had thought that this was classified and that was not the case," Clinton said.
Clinton’s comments contradict the nondisclosure agreement that she signed and that Stephanopoulos quoted to her.
Clinton went on to say that she would like all of her emails to be released, even though the State Department has insisted on keeping some from the public because they contain top secret information.
"The final thing that I would say—because clearly the best answer to all of this is release and disclose these materials—is that what I’m told is that this chain of email very well included a published newspaper report. That seems a little, uh, hard to understand that we would be retroactively overclassifying public newspaper articles. So, let’s just get it out. Let’s see what it is and let the American people draw their own conclusions," Clinton said.
Clinton later compared the controversy over her email to the controversy surrounding the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans. The terrorist attack has led to subsequent investigations into Clinton's handling of consulate security prior to the attack.
Stephanopoulos worked in the administration of President Bill Clinton, a fact he did not disclose during his interview with Hillary Clinton. He has donated to the Clinton Foundation and appeared at its events.