Vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., defended Hillary Clinton’s extremely careless handling of classified information when she served at the State Department, and claimed Sunday that sensitive materials were often improperly marked.
“There were emails that contained classified information that had been improperly marked,” the senator said in reference to her State Department emails.
“So when she received the email, the material that was classified — which is supposed to be flagged and identified as classified — in many instances was improperly labeled,” Kaine said in an interview on ABC News.
“We look at so much material, unless it is specifically pulled out and identified, it is difficult to know sometimes whether a statement or a paragraph is classified or not,” he said.
On Friday, the FBI released more than 50 pages of notes from its interview with the Democratic nominee when it investigated her private email server. The notes show Clinton reportedly told FBI agents that she didn’t understand the State Department’s classification system when she headed the agency.
“When asked what the parenthetical ‘C’ meant before a paragraph … Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order,” the interview notes read.
The FBI notes also revealed Clinton used approximately13 separate personal mobile devices to send and receive classified information over her private email server. Eight of these mobile devices were used when she served at the State Department.
Clinton’s attorneys said they were “unable locate any of these devices” during the whole of the FBI’s investigation of her private server, the federal agency’s interview notes read.
In July, when FBI Director James Comey announced he’d pursue no charges against Clinton, he said she was “extremely careless” with her handling of classified information.
