Clinton Email Saga Continues with 'Spillage' Request

A House oversight committee wants more information from the FBI regarding Hillary Clinton’s email use while she was secretary of state, including which aides or personal representatives may have had access to a “spillage” of classified information.

In a letter dated Aug. 22, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also asked the FBI for an inventory of electronic devices and documents obtained from Clinton’s reps containing classified government data, as well as the FBI’s assessment of whether they “met applicable security requirements.”

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The letter follows FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to bring criminal charges against Clinton for using a private email server while she was secretary of state, despite his admission that the security culture of the agency was “generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that's found elsewhere in the U.S. government.”

Chaffetz also requests an unclassified copy of documents the FBI delivered Aug. 16—with classified information removed. On Monday, Chaffetz told Fox News it would be in the public’s best interest “sooner, rather than later,” to see the unclassified version.

From his letter, it is clear Chaffetz is particularly troubled by “spillage,” which he defines as the transfer of classified information from a computer system authorized to store it to a system that is not.

Chaffetz, citing the National Instruction on Classified Information Spillage and National Security Agency protocol, states that immediate steps to prevent the spillage of classified information include disintegration into particles less than 2 millimeters in size; “incineration, reducing the device to ash,” or degaussing.