Close examination of the Hillary Clinton emails so far released by the State Department reveals some disturbing insights.  Alana Goodman of the Free Beacon noticed that an email from longtime Hillary aide Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at the State Department, was sent to Amitabh Desai, foreign policy director at the Clinton Foundation, containing “foreign government information” that is automatically classified at birth.

The email, which discussed the relationship between the governments in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, was originally drafted by Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s assistant secretary for African affairs, who sent it to Mills’ State Department email address.

Mills later forwarded the full message to Desai along with “talking points for Presient [sic] Clinton” shortly before Bill Clinton was scheduled to visit the region.

About half of the forwarded message was redacted due to its classified nature before the State Department released it to Citizens United last month. Although it is not clear what the redacted section includes, the State Department said in a court motion filed last week that it “concerns both foreign government information and critical aspects of U.S. foreign relations, including U.S. foreign activities carried out by officials of the U.S. Government.”

The State Department added that the “disclosure of this information has the potential to damage and inject friction into our bilateral relationship with African countries whose cooperation is important to U.S. national security.”

Ponder for a moment the situation that has been revealed here.  The Clinton Foundation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from entities, including foreign governments that have business pending with the State Department and the United States government.  That Foundation, we now know, has been given classified information that you and I would not be (and in this instance are not) allowed to see because it could damage relationships with certain countries.  In effect, the Clinton Foundation is operating as a shadow organization with (at least some – we don’t know the full extent) access to inside confidential information at the State Department as it requests substantial funds from foreign governments and private entities that do business with these governments and the U.S. government.

The potential for shakedown and bribery is enormous.

Of course, the Clinton Foundation is employing the “not marked” dodge:

An attorney for Mills said that she never knowingly transmitted classified information, and would presume that any information sent to her unclassified State Department email address—as opposed to through the department’s secure email system—was unclassified.

“When a subject matter sent the information on the unclassified system, [Mills] presumed it was unclassified,” said the attorney. ”She never knowingly transmitted classified information.”

Mills’ spokesperson also disputed the notion that the information would have been classified when it was sent. The attorney said that some information is not deemed classified until it is transmitted outside of the State Department.

“Information that is considered unclassified when discussed inside the State Department can later be deemed classified when it is being released outside of the Department,” said the attorney.

Intelligence experts have told the Free Beacon and other media outlets that “foreign government information” is one of the few categories of information that is automatically presumed classified from the time the U.S. government receives it, because it is so diplomatically sensitive.

Closing question: Why does the Clinton Foundation have a “foreign policy director”?  Isn’t foreign policy the province of the State Department?  This just reeks of a shadow government.

Hat tip: Mike Nadler