Clinton camp downplays ‘top secret’ emails

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is urging the State Department to release all emails from her private server and criticizing the decision to withhold 22 messages classifed as “top secret.”

“This appears to be over-classification run amok,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in a lengthy statement. “We will pursue all appropriate avenues to see that her emails are released in a manner consistent with her call last year.”

“We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails,” he added.

{mosads}Fallon noted that Clinton has urged the State Department for months to make her emails publicly available. 

“We feel no differently today,” he said.

The State Department on Friday said that the Obama administration is withholding 22 emails from Clinton’s private server during her time as secretary of State because the emails were deemed “top secret.”

The move is certain to increase public scrutiny on Clinton and comes just three days before the Iowa caucuses.

“After a process that has been dominated by bureaucratic infighting that has too often played out in public view, the loudest and leakiest participants in this interagency dispute have now prevailed in blocking any release of these emails,” Fallon said Friday.

Fallon insisted that the emails were unmarked “at the time they were sent.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the 37 pages of “top secret” emails were being withheld “at the request” of intelligence agencies. The department has already released thousands of pages of Clinton emails.

“We understand that these emails were likely originated on the State Department’s unclassified system before they were ever shared with Secretary Clinton, and they have remained on the department’s unclassified system for years,” Fallon said Friday.