Hillary Clinton was confronted on Sunday with what many of her detractors have called a smoking gun: evidence in an email she sent during her tenure running the State Department instructing an underling who had been having trouble sending her some talking points over a secure fax line to turn the talking points “into non-paper with no identifying heading and send non-secure.”
On its face, it sounded as though Clinton was instructing an aide to use a non-secure method to transmit information that the aide believed ought to be sent securely. In an interview with Face the Nation host John Dickerson on CBS, Clinton dismissed the allegation, saying political opponents unfamiliar with “common practice” in the State Department were using the email to create a false impression.
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In her role as secretary of state, she said, “[L]ook, I need information. I had some points I had to make. And I was looking for a secure fax that could give me the whole picture. But, oftentimes, there's a lot of information that isn't at all classified. So, whatever information can be appropriately transmitted unclassified often was. That's true for every agency in the government and who everybody does business with the government.”
Clinton noted that the email exchange was between her and aide Jake Sullivan, a State Department veteran and former National Security Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, who has worked with her, on and off, since her 2008 presidential campaign.
“But the important point here is, I had great confidence, because I had worked with Jake Sullivan for years. He is the most meticulous, careful person you could possibly do business with. And he knew exactly what was and wasn't appropriate.
“And, in fact, as the State Department has said, there was no transmission of any classified information. So, it's another effort by people looking for something to throw against the wall, as you said in the beginning of the program, to see what sticks. But there's no there there.”
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In fact, the Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual defines non-paper as, “A written summary of a demarche or other verbal presentation to a foreign government. The non-paper should be drafted in the third person, and must not be directly attributable to the U.S. Government. It is prepared on plain paper (no letterhead or watermark). The heading or title, if any, is simply a statement of the issue or subject. (For example: ‘Genetically-Modified Organisms.’)”
If Clinton had been demanding “non-paper” on a highly-sensitive matter of national security, this email would stand as a significant addition to the mounting pile of evidence that she does not believe herself to be bound by the same rules as other public servants – the most conspicuous evidence of which is her decision to use a private email account for her correspondence as secretary of state.
But Clinton was asking for talking points, which are public information by their nature, and by all appearances asking for them to be provided in a form that is not at all uncommon in either the State Department or other government agencies.
As smoking guns go, this one doesn’t look like a damning piece of evidence.
