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“They may be protecting sources and methods in the interest of national security”

From the article:

“Immediately, the State Department asked Judge Jackson so reconsider her order, claiming that due to an internal “mistake” the office failed to label the e-mails “classified.” If so labeled, Clinton’s e-mails would be exempt from production under FOIA Exemption B(1). Responding to State’s request, Judicial Watch filed documents averring that the Trump administration’s failure was not a mistake, but rather a deliberate attempt by officials at the State Department to shield Hillary Clinton and themselves by “avoiding identifying e-mails on Clinton’s unofficial, non-secure e-mail server as classified.”
In other words, the e-mails were originally said to be “unclassified” so then-Secretary Clinton would not be guilty of having classified material on her private server, but now that people want to see the e-mails, they are said to be “classified,” and were only mistakenly labeled “unclassified.””

““Judicial Watch’s filing cites an interview of an FBI employee who told federal investigators that top State Department official Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to keep Clinton’s e-mails unclassified. The employee told the FBI he ‘believes STATE ha[d] an agenda which involves minimizing the classified nature of the CLINTON emails in order to protect STATE interests and those of CLINTON.’””

These were emails summarizing Obama’s phone calls at the time of Benghazi.

Originally, though under subpoena, they were not available because they were illegally hidden on Clinton’s private server. The State Department stated at the time that they were unclassified.

Now, after being ordered to produce them, the State Department has suddenly decided that the emails should be labelled classified.