WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton's unsecured home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails with material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes just three days before the Iowa presidential nominating caucuses in which Clinton is a candidate. 
 
 Department officials also said the agency's Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus will investigate whether any of the information was classified at the time of transmission, going to the heart of one of Clinton's primary defenses of her email practices. 
 
 The State Department will release its next batch of emails from Clinton's time as secretary of state later Friday. 
 
 But The Associated Press learned seven email chains are being withheld in full from the Friday release because they contain information deemed to be "top secret." The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called "special access programs" — a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping. 
 
 "The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information," State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP, describing the decision to withhold documents in full as "not unusual." That means they won't be published online with the rest of the documents, even with blacked-out boxes. 
 
 Department officials wouldn't describe the substance of the emails, or say if Clinton sent any herself. 
 
 Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has insisted she never sent or received information on her personal email account that was classified at the time. No emails released so far were stamped "CLASSIFIED" or "TOP SECRET," but reviewers previously had designated more than 1,000 messages at lower classification levels for public release. Friday's will be the first at the top secret level. 
 
 Even if Clinton only read, and didn't write or forward the secret messages, she still would have been required to report classification slippages that she recognized. But without classification markings, that may have been difficult, especially if the information was in the public domain. 
 
 "We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails," Clinton campaign spokesman Brain Fallon said in a statement. "Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today." 
 
 Fallon accused the "loudest and leakiest participants" in a process of bureaucratic infighting for withholding the exchanges. The documents, he said, originated in the State Department's unclassified system long before they ever reached Clinton, and "in at least one case, the emails appear to involve information from a published news article." 
 
 "This appears to be overclassification run amok," Fallon said. 
 
 Kirby said the State Department was focused, as part of the Freedom of Information Act review of Clinton's emails, on "whether they need to be classified today." Questions about their past classification, he said, "are being, and will be, handled separately by the State Department." 
 
 Possible department responses for classification infractions include counseling, warnings or other action, State Department officials said, though they declined to say if these applied to Clinton or senior aides who've since left the department. The officials weren't authorized to speak on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 Separately, Kirby said the department also was withholding eight email chains, totaling 18 messages, between President Barack Obama and Clinton. These are remaining confidential "to protect the president's ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel," but will ultimately be released like other presidential records. 
 
 Friday's release is coming at an awkward time for Clinton. The Iowa caucus is on Feb. 1, and her main challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is running a competitive campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton still holds a strong advantage in national polls. 
 
 The emails have been an issue for Clinton's campaign since it became known 10 months ago that she exclusively used a nongovernment account linked to a homebrew server while in office. Clinton first called the decision a matter of convenience and then termed it a mistake, even if doing so wasn't expressly forbidden. But the matter could prove more troublesome now that Clinton's former agency has confirmed that business conducted over the account included top-secret matters. 
 
 Like Clinton, the State Department discounted such a possibility last March. Both also said her account was never hacked or compromised. Security experts assess that as unlikely, and that the vast majority of her emails were preserved properly for archiving purposes because she corresponded mainly with government accounts. They've backtracked from the archiving claim, while the AP discovered several phishing attempts on her server connected to Russia. 
 
 The question of special access programs first surfaced last week, when Charles I. McCullough, the inspector general for U.S. intelligence agencies, cited examples on Clinton's account in a letter to Congress. Republicans pounced on the report, though Clinton's campaign insisted none of the exchanges were "classified at the time" and accused McCullough and GOP lawmakers of selectively leaking materials to damage her presidential hopes. 
 
 Kirby confirmed that the "denied-in-full emails" are among those McCullough recently cited. One of the emails, he said, was among those McCullough identified last summer as possibly containing top secret information. 
 
 The AP reported last August that one focused on a forwarded news article about the classified U.S. drone program run by the CIA. Such operations are widely discussed in the public sphere, including by top U.S. officials, and the State Department immediately argued with McCullough's claim. The other concerned North Korean nuclear weapons programs, according to officials. 
 
 At the time, several officials from different agencies suggested the disagreement over the drone emails reflected the government's tendency to overclassify material, and the lack of consistent policies across difference agencies about what should and shouldn't be classified. 
 
 The FBI also is looking into Clinton's email setup, but has said nothing about the nature of its probe. Independent experts say it is highly unlikely that Clinton will be charged with wrongdoing, based on the limited details that have surfaced up to now and the lack of indications that she intended to break any laws. 
 
 "What I would hope comes out of all of this is a bit of humility" and an acknowledgement from Clinton that "I made some serious mistakes," said Bradley Moss, a Washington lawyer who regularly handles security clearance matters. 
 
 Legal questions aside, it's the potential political costs that are probably of more immediate concern for Clinton. She has struggled in surveys measuring her perceived trustworthiness and an active federal investigation, especially one buoyed by evidence that top secret material coursed through her account, could negate one of her main selling points for becoming commander in chief: Her national security resume. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed this report. ||||| EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton's emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government's most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers. 
 
 Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence known as "special access programs" (SAP). 
 
 That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets. 
 
 “To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” said the IG letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community and State Department. “According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.” 
 
 Intelligence from a "special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as "top secret" – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton's private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a "need-to-know" because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection -- or a human asset -- at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time. 
 
 “There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.” 
 
 In a statement, 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. 
 
 "The Justice Department's inquiry should be allowed to proceed without any further interference." 
 
 Executive Order 13526 -- called "Classified National Security Information" and signed Dec. 29, 2009 -- sets out the legal framework for establishing special access programs. The order says the programs can only be authorized by the president, "the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each." 
 
 The programs are created when "the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” and “the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved," it states. 
 
 According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009. 
 
 Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general. 
 
 Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment. 
 
 In a statement, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “The State Department is focused on and committed to releasing former Secretary Clinton’s emails in a manner that protects sensitive information. No one takes this more seriously than we do.” 
 
 The intelligence community IG was responding in his message to a November letter from the Republican chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees that questioned the State Department email review process after it was wrongly reported the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” designation. 
 
 As Fox News first reported, those two emails were “top secret” when they hit the server, and it is now considered a settled matter. 
 
 The intelligence agencies now have their own reviewers embedded at the State Department as part of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The reviewers are identifying intelligence of a potentially classified nature, and referring it to the relevant intelligence agency for further review. 
 
 There is no formal appeals process for classification, and the agency that generates the intelligence has final say. The State Department only has control over the fraction of emails that pertain to their own intelligence. 
 
 While the State Department and Clinton campaign have said the emails in questions were “retroactively classified” or “upgraded” – to justify the more than 1,300 classified emails on her server – those terms are meaningless under federal law. 
 
 The former federal law enforcement official said the finding in the January IG letter represents a potential violation of USC 18 Section 793, “gross negligence” in the handling of secure information under the Espionage Act. 
 
 Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent. 
 
 Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine “Fox Files” and later, “War Stories.” ||||| Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. | AP Photo 2016 Source: Key Clinton emails did not contain highly classified secrets 'The initial determination was based on a flawed process,' a source says. 
 
 The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top-secret information, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO. 
 
 After a review, intelligence agencies concluded that the two emails did not include highly classified intelligence secrets, the source said. Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an ongoing FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email setup. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III made the claim that two of the emails contained top-secret information; the State Department publicly stated its disagreement and asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office to referee the dispute. Now, that disagreement has been resolved in State’s favor, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 A spokesman for Clapper said the review of the emails has not been completed. "ODNI has made no such determination and the review is ongoing," Clapper spokesman Brian Hale said. 
 
 However, the source said State Department officials had already received instructions from intelligence officials that they need not use the strictest standards for handling the two emails in dispute – meaning that they aren’t highly classified. 
 
 Hale declined to comment on whether any changes had been made in recent days to the handling requirements for the disputed emails. 
 
 Intelligence officials claimed one email in Clinton’s account was classified because it contained information from a top-secret intelligence community “product” or report, but a further review determined that the report was not issued until several days after the email in question was written, the source said. 
 
 "The initial determination was based on a flawed process," the source said. "There was an intelligence product people thought [one of the emails] was based on, but that actually postdated the email in question." 
 
 A senior intelligence official told POLITICO last month that the disputes over the classification of Clinton's emails would take some time to adjudicate. "The process is ongoing and is likely to be a lengthy one due to the volume of material and the litigation aspects," said the official, who asked not be named. 
 
 State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday he was unaware of any resolution of the classification issue regarding the messages McCullough's office said had been deemed "top secret." 
 
 "As far as I know we’ve received no final decision by the intelligence community with respect to these two emails," Kirby said at a daily briefing for reporters. "As far as we know, that process is ongoing." 
 
 
 
 One curious twist to the classification dispute is that it is not entirely clear who has authority to resolve it. State spokesmen have repeatedly said that the diplomatic agency has asked Clapper's office to review the issue, but the intelligence chief's office has never acknowledged the power to override an intelligence agency's determination on classification or to order State not to release information it considers unclassified. 
 
 There is an interagency committee to hear appeals on declassification issues, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel. The group, run out of an office at the National Archives, usually considers disputes about historical information. Kirby said Friday he was unsure whether that panel was involved in the current dispute or why State raised its concerns with Clapper's office instead. 
 
 A top expert in classification procedures called the reported determination about the disputed emails "an astonishing turn of events." 
 
 "It's not just a mistake," Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said of the initial "Top Secret" claim. "It was a transformative event in the presidential campaign to this point. It had a potential to derail Clinton's presidential candidacy." 
 
 Aftergood said Clapper's office should be credited for seriously reconsidering the earlier conclusions by intelligence agencies. 
 
 "Usually, when an agency commits itself to a judgment that is this consequential, the agency will tend to dig in its heels and insist — no matter what — it was right. What's unusual here is an agency said we reconsidered and we changed our mind. That's a difficult thing to do, and they're liable to be attacked for doing it," Aftergood said. 
 
 A spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign welcomed the reported development, while allies said the news vindicates her. 
 
 "The inspector general’s determination always seemed arbitrary and questionable, and we are grateful that it appears the DNI may be confirming that," spokesman Brian Fallon said. "This would illustrate the subjective nature of the classification rules that are at the heart of this matter." 
 
 "DNI Clapper’s determination is further evidence that there was no wrongdoing by Secretary Clinton," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). "The classification process is complex and subjective, but this confirms Secretary Clinton did not send classified information through her email account. It’s time to put this issue behind us and move on.” 
 
 In an Aug. 11 memo to 17 lawmakers, McCullough said the two emails "include information classified up to TOP SECRET//SI/TK/NOFORN." The subject of the emails has never been publicly confirmed, but published reports have said one refers to North Korea's nuclear program and another to U.S. drone operations. The acronym "SI" in the classification marking refers to "signals intelligence," and a footnote in McCullough's memo references the work of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which oversees U.S. spy satellites. 
 
 Kirby said in September that the agency believed State officials got some of the information in the disputed emails from sources different from the highly sensitive sources used by intelligence agencies. 
 
 "One thing that’s important to remember is that very often the State Department and the intelligence community acquire information from separate channels, and thus there can be more than one report about a certain issue or an event. And some of those reports can be derived wholly through unclassified means, and some are derived through classified means," Kirby told reporters. 
 
 Various officials have confirmed that none of the Clinton emails was marked classified, although hundreds have now been deemed as such by State, nearly all at the Confidential level — the lowest tier of classification. 
 
 McCullough's August memo said Congress would be provided "updates" on the situation. However, it's unclear whether any written notification of the withdrawal of the "Top Secret" classification has been shared with lawmakers. A spokeswoman had no immediate comment for this story. 
 
 State or other agencies may eventually determine that the emails in question contain classified information, but the recent action cleared State to handle the two emails in State's standard FOIA system, which is authorized only for information classified up to the "Secret" level — the middle of the three main tiers of national security information. 
 
 The two emails are part of a set of four emails McCullough's investigators flagged after obtaining access earlier this year to a sample of 40 emails among the 30,000 Clinton stored on a private server and provided to her former agency last December. "My office's limited sampling of 40 of the emails revealed [that] four contained classified [intelligence community] information that should have been marked and handled at the SECRET level," McCullough wrote to lawmakers on July 23. 
 
 Concerns about the four emails McCullough's investigators isolated appear to have set in motion a series of critical events in the email saga. State stepped up its efforts to have Clinton's private attorney David Kendall return thumb drives. 
 
 State decided back in May that one email in the Clinton collection contained "Secret" information about arrests possibly linked to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. At that time, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy asked Kendall to delete all copies of that email and return all paper copies to the department. Kendall declined to delete the electronic copies because of outstanding preservation requests from inspectors general and congressional committees. 
 
 However, the classification of that email as secret did not set off the scramble that began in late July when the intelligence inspector general flagged the set of four from the sample of 40. The flagging of those four emails by the ICIG led to a formal referral to the FBI of a potential counterintelligence breach. 
 
 Within days, the FBI contacted Kendall asking him to turn over the thumb drive, which he did in early August. On July 31, Kennedy also sent urgent letters to lawyers for two top Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, asking that all the federal records in their possession be immediately returned to the government, along with all copies. 
 
 FBI Director James Comey has since confirmed his agency is conducting a review of the matter. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment when asked what impact the classification developments would have on the agency's ongoing probe. 
 
 While disclosures of information classified at the "Secret" level can trigger an investigation, Aftergood said the conclusion that the two emails were not "Top Secret" could have some impact on how the FBI proceeds. 
 
 "That would tend to reduce the urgency of the initial referral," he said.
– Since July, Hillary Clinton's team has been fighting findings by the intelligence community's inspector general that she housed classified information on her private email server. But a special intelligence review by the CIA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency just bolstered the original proclamation, finding that two emails she received in 2009 and 2011 via that server were considered "Top Secret," including an email about North Korea's nukes, the New York Times reports, citing senior intelligence officials speaking anonymously. Clinton's campaign is doubling down, however, with a rep accusing the discovery process of being tainted by "bureaucratic infighting" and a State Department spokesman proclaiming that "classification is rarely a black and white question. … At this time, any conclusion about the classification of the documents in question would be premature." The "Top Secret" designation, signed off on by President Obama in a 2009 executive order, is bestowed on info that, if revealed, "could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to … national security." But Clinton herself backed up her rep's assessment, telling the AP yesterday in Iowa that "there is always a debate among different agencies about [whether] something should be retroactively [marked classified]." When asked why she isn't offering up any direct apologies, she added, "What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that. I did not send or receive any information marked classified. I take the responsibilities of handling classified materials very seriously and did so." (Clinton did recently apologize for this matter being "confusing to people.")