Top diplomats under former President George W.

Bush received classified information

on personal email accounts, says a State Department report.

The report said former Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to former Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice received the emails. The two served the Republican Bush
administration.

Classified information is considered too sensitive to be shared outside of top government

officials. It is supposed to be kept under tight security.

Critics of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton point to her use of her personal
email account. The new State Department report could help show that she was not alone in
this use.

Clinton has been forced to defend reports she received classified information via emails as
secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The State Department official, Steve Linick, who questioned the Clinton emails, also looked
into Bush administration officials sharing classified emails.

In his report, Linick said his office reviewed 19 emails sent to Powell and aides to Rice. He
said State Department officials decided 12 of the 19 contain classified information.

Powell said this in a statement: I have received the messages and I do not see what makes
them classified.

An aide to Rice told the Associated Press that Rice did not use emails as secretary of state.
The aide said 10 emails now questioned by the State Department contained no intelligence
information.

John Podesta, chair of the Clinton campaign, said Hillary Clinton agrees with
her predecessors that emails are being wrongly labeled as classified.

I'm Bruce Alpert.

Words in This Story

classified adj. kept secret from all but a few people in the government

sensitive adj. likely to cause people to become upset

tight -- adj. strict, very close controls

review v. an act of carefully looking at or examining the quality or condition of something

or someone

predecessor n. a person who had the same job before you