"Clinton’s so-called 'top secret' emails could shrink down ... to just 2 or 3 out of the seven – or maybe just 1 – on which she might have spent a single minute or less. A State Department conclusion of this kind would be a serious nuisance for FBI bitter-enders."

...................................................................................................................................................................
The State Department Halts A Potentially Vindicating Review of Hillary Clinton Emails
By Charles Tiefer, April 1, 2016

The State Department announced Friday that it would halt its review of Hillary Clinton’s classified emails, at the request of the FBI.

On the basic level, this is relatively routine. During the pendency of a criminal investigation, parallel civil investigations (like the State Department’s) are often halted or stayed.  The criminal investigation has preeminence, and a civil investigation would get in the way.   This is standard, and does not say anything specific or significant about the nature of the criminal investigation.

For example, the criminal investigation and the State Department investigation might both want to question the same witnesses. Inevitably, small differences occur when the same witness is questioned twice, by different investigators operating in separately organizations.  So, the criminal investigations usually prefer that no civil inquiries mess up the record by producing such versions.

But, there are subtleties in this particular investigation. A good deal of the case turns on how to view Clinton’s emails, and the State Department might reach its own conclusions from going ahead with its own review that the FBI would find awkward.  Generally speaking, the State Department knows from experience what its senior staff do as standard practice.  They send emails among themselves that pass on information acquired from conversations with foreign diplomats or other public and private figures with whom they hold discussions.

Hundreds of such emails were sent to Clinton. Looking back long afterwards, although they were not marked classified, and were not put in State’s system for classified information, these have been deemed, retroactively, to have classified information.  And that is much of the case against her.

Because the State Department is familiar with this, its pressing ahead with its own review might result in conclusions supportive of Clinton. It might describe much of the email exchanging as State Department “business as usual.”  The State Department review might focus on how the vast majority of the emails came from others to her, and that she herself wrote as little as five or six percent of all the ones now being retroactively deemed classified and hence mishandled.

A State Department conclusion of this kind would be a nuisance for the more hard-boiled FBI investigators. They do not want to acknowledge – at least not yet — what is “business as usual” in the State Department.  And, they do not want to acknowledge –at least not yet – that around 95% of the emails were written – and not marked classified, and sent through unclassified channels — by all those other State Department officials, not Clinton.

Moreover, we do know this about the State Department review to date. Apparently some main focuses for it are the so-called 22 “top secret” (“special access program”) e-mails – these, too, were not marked classified, and were not put in State’s system for classified information, but have been deemed this way retroactively.  They are “so-called 22” because in fact they are only seven email chains, each of several emails.

Furthermore, of those seven “top secret” chains, most – it is not known how exactly many, but “most” of the seven may even be an understatement – concerned drone strikes, such as one controversial one in Pakistan that got brought to her attention by a diplomatic fracas. To the CIA and the FBI, this program is technically a sensitive compartmentalized one, and hence, even a mention of it gets retroactively classified “top secret.”  But to the State Department, the drone program is so thoroughly in the public domain, and so extensively – and necessarily — talked about with foreign diplomats and that like (including State’s key role of defending and justifying them), that emails about such exchanges do not ring alarm bells at State like those for truly covert programs not so completely in the public domain.

A State Department review would surely put the email chains about the drones in perspective. And with most of the seven email chains thus dealt with, Clinton’s so-called “top secret” emails could shrink down, as to the remaining arguably sensitive ones, to just 2 or 3 out of the seven – or maybe just 1 – on which she might have spent a single minute or less.  A State Department conclusion of this kind would be a serious nuisance for FBI bitter-enders.

So stopping the State Department review, blocks off one way that it might become generally understood that the realities of the State Department tend to exonerate Clinton.
...................................................................................................................................................................