Hillary explanations are implausible

Hillary Clinton and her campaign team have put forth a snowstorm of half-truths and untruths about her use of a private server to communicate and receive government-classified information. It is time to cut through the fog of obfuscation and dismissive comments about her communications activities.

When The Washington Post and other media reported that 54 of her emails contained classified information, Mrs. Clinton said that messages did not have classified markings at the time she sent or received them. Her spokesman also said that security markings (i.e., CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET or TOP SECRET) were added to the messages at a later date.

As someone who served as a military staff officer and held a high-level security clearance for over 20 years, I find these explanations to be implausible. I routinely dealt with sensitive communications and never saw a classified message that was not marked as such. Secretary of State Clinton received and sent a large number of such messages on a daily basis and, based on ironclad security protocols, the level of classification on each communication should have been clearly marked.

Further, if Secretary Clinton's staff did alter or add classification markings to her messages at a later date, they committed a serious federal crime.

We should not vote for a presidential candidate who frequently put the country at risk by handling sensitive government information in an irresponsible manner.

Colonel R. J. Stack

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret.)

Huntley