More Clinton emails to be labeled ‘top secret,’ lawmaker says

A Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee warned on Wednesday that the Obama administration will declare that additional emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server during her time as secretary of State have been classified at the highest level.

“The press has reporting there’s been 22 emails. There’s actually more than that,” Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. 

{mosads}“They do reveal classified methods. They do reveal classified sources and they do reveal human assets,” he added. “I can’t imagine how anyone could be familiar with these emails, whether they’re sending them or receiving them, and not realize that these are highly classified.”

Stewart told the Washington Examiner there are seven additional emails that will be marked as “top secret,” in addition to the 22 emails revealed last week.

The State Department last week acknowledged that additional emails could be classified at the top secret level, but declined to confirm Stewart’s claim on Wednesday.

“We are not aware of any additional documents that will be upgraded to top secret,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “If, in the course of our FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] review process, it is determined that additional information should be classified as top secret we will do so.”

Confirmation that there were more highly classified emails on Clinton’s server would only add to the controversy that has chased her Democratic presidential campaign. Criticism has mounted that her unconventional email setup may have jeopardized official government secrets.

Clinton and her allies have been dismissive of the concern, chalking it up to politically motivated leaks and “over-classification run amok.”

Kirby on Wednesday did not address Stewart’s allegations about the emails, but appeared to refute a Fox News report claiming that the messages contained “operational” information that would put “sources, methods and lives” at risk. 

“Some of the claims about this we don’t subscribe to,” he said.

In addition to the 22 top secret emails, the State Department has identified more than 1,300 emails that were classified at a lower level. Officials have maintained that none of the messages on Clinton’s machine were marked as classified at the time they were sent.

Many of the emails were not sent by Clinton, but originated from an aide sending her information. 

This story was updated at 5:22 p.m.