Hillary’s secret email argument is total bull!

Hillary and classified information have gotten ridiculous. 22 of her emails—the ones she released to the State Department no less—cannot be released to the public because they are top secret.

We are also told the Russians and Chinese almost certainly read the emails by hacking.

That leaves the following: The 22 emails in question have been read by various Hillary friends and associates, some of whom had no top secret clearance, the Russians and Chinese, the intelligence community, the Obama top officials. The only people who have NOT read these emails are the American people.

Hillary keeps saying this is just a dispute between various intelligence personnel over what is and what is not a classified document and that these have only been classified AFTER she sent or received them. That is really nutso.

1. The biggest expert in the State Department about the secrecy of any document is the Secretary of State. There almost seems to be a hint that she’s just a girl and that some man was in charge of saying what was secret. It was not something she was supposed to bother her pretty little head about.

2. If there is ANY doubt about whether a document is classified, it must be determined BEFORE it is shared with anyone. The generator of the document must make the classification decision.

3. When a document could go either way, it’s classified. When in doubt, leave it out of the unclassified category.

4. Whether a document is classified is determined by what it says when it says it, not by whether some unnamed bureaucrat who is an “expert on secrecy” has marked it as such. As I said above, the biggest expert in the State Department on whether a given document is secret or top secret or SAP or whatever is the Secretary of State. She is talking as if she were merely A secretary—G-7 clerk/typist at State, not THE Secretary.

5. She keeps saying the documents in question did not become classified until AFTER she sent or received them. That’s insane. If they have already been sent by unsecured means or shared even by secure means with a person who lacked adequate clearance, what would be the point of subsequently classifying them? In trade-secret law, one defense is that the owner of the trade secret failed to take reasonable steps to keep the information in question secret.

6. There is another angle on this that no one speaks of. If I am a military person whose mission might be compromised and/or whose personnel may be in danger from the unsecure dissemination, I MUST BE TOLD ABOUT THAT IMMEDIATELY AFTER IT BECOMES KNOWN TO ANYONE! THE SAME IS TRUE OF ANY INTELLIGENCE AGENT WHOSE MISSION OR SAFETY HAS BEEN JEOPARDIZED!

On one of my patrols in U.S. Army Ranger School, the radio operator or patrol leader—it wasn’t me—lost the SOI (signal operating instructions—the secret code book). The patrol was halted while two guys were sent back to find it. They did. My Best Man was one of them. Only then did the patrol continue.

In fact, in combat, that incident would have to be reported to higher because the enemy may have copied it and put it back on the ground. The mere fact that it MIGHT have been compromised meant the command should immediately issue an order to stop using it and disseminate new code books to all units. I believe we did get new code books a couple of times when I was in Vietnam because of incidents where the enemy might have seen one of the books.

This is inside information I am giving you, but it’s also just common sense. A secret is only a secret if it is a secret from birth until years later when it is formally declassified because it’s stale and no longer of any value to the enemy.

Try applying Hillary’s arguments to General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in World War II with regard to the date and location of the D-Day invasion. If he improperly shared the secret by unsecure telephone with his female British driver, could he then claim he did nothing wrong because it was not “marked classified” when he told her? Helllll no! HE was the one who originated it and the one responsible for marking it classified.