It is hard to overstate the significance of the latest revelations about the national security catastrophe caused by Hillary Clinton’s private email server.  The nation’s highest-level secrets were kept on an unsecure server that is believed to be have been hacked by multiple overseas parties.

These revelations come from the nation’s Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III, not some partisan.  He is a nonpolitical official who was confirmed by the Senate and entrusted with keeping our intelligence agencies honest.  For those readers who have not yet familiarized themselves with the revelations, Catherine Herridge’s exclusive report at Fox News must be read.  (Incidentally, Herridge deserves a Pulitzer Prize for her ongoing coverage of this story, though given the leftist bias usually seen in the Pulitzers, this is unlikely to happen unless Hillary actually is indicted – which is now far from unthinkable.)

McCullough’s report was supplied to senior members of oversight committees in Congress, which almost certainly means that it was legislators who leaked the explosive contents to Herridge.  His letter indicates that the highest-level secrets, called “Special Access Programs” (SAP), were found in emails on the homebrew server.  These secrets are so profound that McCullough himself had to obtain special permission to read the emails that were available to hackers in the employ of foreign nations and terror organizations.

People and programs were put at risk.  We may never know who dies, and which multi-billion-dollar programs had to be junked, but such consequences are reasonably to be predicted by exposure of secrets at this level.

So what has been the Clinton campaign’s response?  Herridge received the following:

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said, "This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received. It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Fallon is spreading this line to friendly sources, as well.  It is all they have got:

.@brianefallon says Clinton emails werent classified when sent or received accuses Intel IG of working w/ GOP to leak selectively

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 20, 2016

So the IG is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy!  And inverting logic, the ultra-secret contents weren’t classified because they weren’t marked as such.  Ahem, emails are marked because they are secret; they are not secret because they are marked.  Clinton's outright initial denial that her server contained classified informtaion is now a joke.

The FBI has access to the same report.  A decision not to make a criminal referral when the nation’s beyond-top-secret intelligence has been exposed would discredit the FBI as a politicized agency.  Given the personal history of James Comey and the 150 special agents reportedly involved in the investigation, I would wager a substantial sum that a criminal referral will result.

Charles Krauthammer:

“From some people I have talked to, this is worse than what Snowden did because he didn’t have access to SAP.” “The reason it’s [so sensitive] is if it’s compromised, people die,” he said. “It also means that operations that have been embedded for years and years get destroyed and cannot be reconstituted. This is very serious.” Krauthammer said this update makes it unlikely the Department of Justice will “wave it away”:  

Petraeus, as was mentioned earlier, he pled guilty because precisely this kind of information he shared. And I don’t see, given the fact that he is the inspector general of the intelligence community who was writing this officially to the intelligence committee heads in Congress that there is any way to contradict this. It is not a news story. This is an investigative story. And now it’s in the hands of the FBI. It’s hard to imagine that the Department of Justice will ignore this or wave it away.”

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has surged to a 27-point lead over Hillary in New Hampshire.  She is looking more vulnerable than ever, and the Obama administration is forced to consider its options.  Going all out in defending Hillary is unlikely, given the bitter personal history and factional rivalry for control of the Democratic Party.

At least Hillary likes orange.