Now that the Justice Department and the FBI have taken possession of the hard drives containing Hillary Clinton’s emails during her time as secretary of state, the question remains: what took so long?
The State Department made an arrangement earlier this year with Clinton lawyer David Kendall to hold the thumb drives containing her emails.
However, even before that arrangement, U.S. intelligence agencies began doing damage assessments after noticing that some of the emails contained information that those agencies “owned,” a government term used to designate which agency generated a certain piece of classified information.
It’s not clear that State officials advised the Clinton legal team at the time of the steps being taken by the intelligence agencies.
The Kendall arrangement was problematic even though Kendall has a security clearance — until recently he represented David Petraeus, the former CIA director who knowingly shared classified information with his paramour and biographer who wasn’t cleared to possess such information.
Kendall’s law office wasn’t deemed by the FBI and intelligence agencies to be a proper place to hold information now declared to be “top secret.” That is a classification that applies to at least two emails reviewed by the inspector general for the intelligence community. Such information has specific secure-storage requirements, mostly in government buildings that meet stringent security requirements that, for instance, prohibit cell phones in secure rooms.
Months ago, the CIA raised concerns that some of its information was affected and began a damage assessment. The FBI began its own assessment that dates to the early months this year.
Sen. Charles Grassley raised concerns about the Kendall arrangement after the inspectors general for the intelligence community and the State Department notified Congress in July that it had made a referral on the matter to the FBI. Grassley asked FBI Director James Comey to intervene.
The FBI is conducting an assessment, a type of investigation to determine what steps next to take.
Part of that investigation now includes examining the server turned over Wednesday by a Denver company that managed the Clinton email system.