Senator Richard Burr (left) and Senator Bob Corker (right) (Credit: The Washington Post (left) and Getty Images (right))

Shortly after Clinton claims in early March 2015 that her emails contained no classified information, senators Richard Burr and Bob Corker, the Republican chairmen of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees, ask the inspectors general of the State Department and the Intelligence Community to investigate if Clinton or other top State Department officials had classified information on their private email accounts.

State Department Inspector General Charles McCullough will only be given a random sample of 40 Clinton emails to investigate. He will conclude that four of them contained information that should have been marked classified. (The New York Times, 8/8/2015) 

One of those four emails will later be declassified and released publicly by the State Department. It will turn out that email was mistakenly thought to be based on a secret report, but the report actually was made slightly after the email was sent.

Another will be deemed “confidential” and partially released.

Another, written on July 3, 2009 about North Korea, will be deemed “top secret” at first and then downgraded to “secret” and partially released.

Finally, one will be permanently deemed “top secret,” and will be considered one of 22 of Clinton’s top secret emails. (The Washington Post, 3/27/2016) (The New York Times, 2/29/2016) (Politico, 11/6/2015)