FEELING THE BURN

When I was in the service I had a very high security clearance.  My security clearance itself was classified.  The men and women I worked with took national security very seriously.  None of us ever talked about the job, even among ourselves, unless we were in a secure setting.  We wouldn’t have considering taking a picture of any equipment and definitely would never have removed a classified document from a secure area.

Anyone who has worked in this type of facility is familiar with a burn bag.  Extremely sensitive documents are marked “burn after reading.”  When we were done with this type of document, it was not thrown in the trash nor was it even shredded.  It was put in a paper burn bag and stapled shut.  These bags were taken under guard to another location within the secure premises and the bag and contents were burned.  Extreme measures were taken to make sure these documents were completely and permanently destroyed.  We even had an internal joke about this, saying that a document was so classified that it was marked “burn before reading.”

That is why this e-mail is so shocking and why it should elevate the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal to a whole new level:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/22/emails-huma-abedin-left-classified-material-unsecured-in-the-front-seat-of-her-car/

Hume sent an e-mail saying there is a “bunch of burn stuff” that she left in her car.  No wonder Hillary Clinton and the State Department desperately tried to cover up the existence of this e-mail.  Talk about a smoking gun.  This is beyond bad.  This is even beyond criminally negligent.  This is insane. People have gone to jail for accidentally removing this type of information from a secure location.  The tone of the e-mail implies that Huma Abedin did this routinely and was only concerned this time because she was going to have “an ambassador” ride on the next drive.  Incredibly, she doesn’t ask this person to take the “burn stuff” to a secure location; she is just instructed to just put in in the trunk.  It really doesn’t get any worse than this.

At best this is criminally irresponsible.  But it could be worse.  It is a serious problem when someone is taking such highly classified information out of a secure area.  This means we may never know who was given access to this information.  We may never know the extent to which our national security was jeopardized.  That is doubly true when the person involved in Huma Abedin who has close relatives who are connected with Muslim extremists, including the Muslim Brotherhood.  This is not a minor problem.

If this is not enough to shock responsible people in both parties to take immediate action, then what on earth would it take?  At what point do even liberal Democrats realize that a threat to national security is a threat to everyone?  I wonder if a liberal Democrat is even capable of putting the country first.

TDM