So I see this headline: "CIA shrugs off Clinton’s ‘classified’ email".
And I think, whoa, the CIA doesn't think Clinton's private email issue is important at all? How can that be?
Then I read the article (how many people moved past the all-clear signal of the headline?) and find out that the CIA cleared a single email message:
The credibility of the Republican-led Benghazi committee came under fresh attack Sunday after the CIA informed the panel that it does not view a 2011 email forwarded by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as including any classified information.
So a single email message was shrugged off. And that undermines the committee's credibility?
So one down. Only 30,000 (that we know of) to go.
But wait. It gets better.
After the CIA shrugged off the email as no big deal, the committee released it to the public. What difference does it make, right?
Behold the outrage storm!
The Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi hastily deleted the name of a high-level Libyan defector from one of its public releases on Monday, shortly after Yahoo News reported the panel had inadvertently revealed the defector’s name in an effort to embarrass Hillary Clinton.
The error has put the committee on the defensive, the writer says.
Remember, according to the first article:
[A] CIA official informed the committee that the agency does not view that email, among 127 previously undisclosed messages sent by Blumenthal to Clinton that the panel plans to release this week, as having any portions that need to be redacted because they include classified information. [emphasis added]
So is it bad that the committee released the email insufficiently redacted or good that Clinton mishandled a document with no classified information?
With our press corps, the answer is of course, both are true.
UPDATE: The CIA shrugged off the disclosure of the name:
The CIA has told Congress that the name of an alleged secret agency source, mentioned but then partially redacted by the U.S. State Department from an email received on Hillary Clinton's private server was not considered by the agency to be secret at all.
Oh, those crazy conspiracy theories.
