Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in national security matters, said Wednesday that Hillary Clinton’s senior aides, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, would struggle to obtain security clearances if Clinton were elected president.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough asked Zaid about what kind of a precedent Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the subsequent FBI investigation into her email practices may set for classified documentation.
Zaid said that secure systems are always necessary for classified information and discussed the role of Clinton’s staffers in the invesstigation.
"We can’t lose sight of her aides involved with this. Everybody wants to focus, of course, on the presumptive nominee," Zaid said. "But I think the aides, the senior officials who worked with her, were far more at risk and I’m really interested to see what happens with that."
Scarborough then asked Zaid if Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin would be able to obtain security clearances in the future. Zaid said that it will be difficult for them.
"Based on what FBI Director Comey said, I think they’re going to have an uphill battle," Zaid said. "I can tell you, in over twenty years I’ve been handling security clearance cases, I’ve had numerous clients that have lost their clearances and their federal employment for doing far, far less than what’s at issue here."