Clinton's passport file breached as well

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has reportedly informed Clinton of a 2007 incident.

Published March 21, 2008 4:07PM (EDT)

Barack Obama is reportedly not the only presidential candidate whose passport file has been breached -- according to CNN, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Hillary Clinton that Clinton's file was also examined without authorization, in 2007.

The news comes from Clinton's Senate office, where staffers will be briefed on the matter this afternoon. A statement from the Clinton office said, "Senator Clinton will closely monitor the State Department's investigation into this and the other breaches of private passport information."

The State Department has refused to release the names of the companies that employed the contractors who looked at Obama's file.

Update: Clearly, someone wanted to make sure John McCain didn't feel left out -- his file was also accessed. In a briefing, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, "In the case of Senator McCain, we detected earlier this year -- I don't have the exact date for you -- one of the same people who accessed Senator Obama's file also accessed Senator McCain's passport file. This is the same individual who was disciplined, but at this point in time still remains working with the contractor. So we are reviewing our options with respect to that person and his employment status."

McCormack also provided further details on what happened in the case of the Clinton breach, saying, "The context in which this happened was that last summer when we were training new people to come online to help work through that backlog of passports that we had, we brought somebody online. Usually in these training circumstances, people are encouraged to enter a family member's name, just for training purposes. This person chose Senator Clinton's name. It was immediately recognized, they were immediately admonished. And it didn't happen again."


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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