DNI rejected national security damage assessment of Clinton emails as required by 2014 law

The director of U.S. intelligence decided against conducting an assessment of the damage done to national security by Hillary Clinton’s sending and receiving of classified information on her private email server.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper agreed with intelligence officials “who argued against the need to carry out the damage assessment,” according to a report by Bill Gertz.

A June 2014 counterintelligence directive requires the damage assessment. The directive, ICD-732, states that “damage assessments shall be conducted when there is an actual or suspected unauthorized disclosure or compromise of classified national intelligence that may cause damage to U.S. national security.”

The most sensitive classified information that passed through Clinton’s private server, and possibly obtained by foreign intelligence services, included information on U.S. drone strikes, according to American intelligence officials.

The information on drone strikes is classified above the Top-Secret level and limited to distribution to a few officials in what is called a Special Access Program — an intelligence compartment used to prevent the disclosure of the government’s most secret information.

“Intelligence officials argued in internal discussions that since many details of the drone missile program targeting terrorists were disclosed in earlier leaks unrelated to Clinton’s use of a personal email server, gauging the damage done by her conduct would be difficult, and possibly unnecessary,” the Washington Free Beacon report said.