One of the emails that triggered the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s server contained classified intelligence from three different agencies, Fox News has learned – which could mean the State Department violated a President Obama-signed executive order by authorizing its release.
That 2009 order, EO 13526,
lays out the rules for "classifying, safeguarding and declassifying
national security information." It states that the authority to declassify
rests with the intelligence agency that originated the information.
"Information shall be
declassified or downgraded by … the official who authorized the original
classification ... [or] the originator's current successor," the order
says.
One of the two emails that
sparked the FBI probe was an April 2011 email from Clinton confidant Huma
Abedin that, Fox News has learned, contained intelligence from the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which oversees aerial imagery, including
satellites.
Despite this fact and despite
the executive order, the State Department publicly released the email and its
intelligence -- which was not theirs to declassify -- onto its website in May
as part of the initial release of documents on the 2012 Benghazi attack.
