It could be more problematic for the American intelligence community to earn the trust of sources following the revelation that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private emails talked about the case of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who was executed by Tehran for treason after allegedly working with the United States, experts told the Washington Examiner.
Amiri's case is mentioned, although not by name, in two of Clinton's emails, which were sent on her personal, unclassified server in 2010 when she was serving as secretary of state. In one instance he is referred to as "our friend" and in another as the "gentleman."
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said on CBS' "Face The Nation" earlier this week the fact that Amiri's case appears in Clinton's emails "goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe."
Republican nominee Donald Trump echoed that sentiment, claiming in a tweet:
Although there is no evidence that these accusations are true, Institute for the Study of War analyst Chris Harmer told the Examiner that "Failure to adequately safeguard current information makes it less likely that U.S. personnel or allies will put themselves at risk when U.S. leaders fail to safeguard potentially life threatening information."
American Enterprise Institute resident fellow Matthew McInnis agreed that sources will be more wary to take the risk of cooperating with the U.S., but insisted that it would only be a relatively marginal problem since he says most intelligence these days comes not from human intelligence but from the National Security Administration and allies.
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