Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he believes foreign countries like Russia, China and Iran may have hacked the private email server Hillary Clinton used while secretary of State.
“Given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high,” he said Thursday during an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”
{mosads}Gates said he agreed with former acting CIA Director Mike Morell’s claim that the server had probably been hacked by either Russia, China or Iran.
He added that the fact that classified intelligence has been found on the server was “a concern for me.”
“I never used email when I was head of CIA or head of the Department of Defense,” Gates said.
Pressed on whether the classified information found on Clinton’s server would compromise national security, Gates backed off slightly.
“Well, again, it would depend entirely on what she put on there,” he responded.
“And I just, I haven’t read any of these emails, so I don’t know what was on those servers.”
Gates had previously praised Clinton for her time running the State Department.
“She was a good secretary of State,” Gates said in a May 2015 interview on “Face the Nation.”
“She played a critical role in getting much tougher sanctions on Iran. … We agreed in terms of the Afghan surge — if anything, she was tougher than I was on that. She was ready to support [General Stanley] McChrystal’s 40,000 troops and only went along with the 30,000 because I proposed it.”