Newly released Clinton emails reveal 'new smoking gun' — and more classified information

Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group, released another batch of emails from Hillary Clinton's private email server on Friday and said a "new smoking gun" was revealed in the emails.

What did the group find?

The group received another round of emails from the State Department on Friday, which is releasing the emails on an ongoing basis as part of the group's Freedom of Information Act request.

The 78 new pages of emails released revealed that Clinton knew of the potential security risks that came with using a personal, unsecured server. The emails also contained three more messages with classified information. According to Judicial Watch, the emails also appear to be among those that Clinton's staff tried to purposely hide or delete.

What is the "smoking gun"?

Clinton has maintained that she was technologically illiterate when it came to dealing with her server and any security issues it may have had. She has used this excuse to, in a roundabout way, claim plausible deniability.

But on June 6, 2011, Clinton aide Justin Cooper warned the then-secretary of state of her system's security vulnerabilities, specifically with her emails and cell phone devices.

"All of your older messages will remain on the server. There is a way for me to move everything onto the new device, but the security whizzes have convinced me that this is a horrible thing to do because you also transfer any viruses, spyware and junk overseas providers hide on there,” Cooper wrote to Clinton. “We also have some new security features and policies [sic] that I would like to add to any new berry you have –the most noticeable difference will require a more complex password. It is a constant fight to keep up with the security measures and unfortunately we keep seeing reminders of why we need to."

And despite attempts by Clinton and her top aides to downplay any knowledge she had about the server, Friday's email dump also revealed she discussed numerous other IT issues with her aides, including basic discussions about the server, email backups and how to setup her accounts on an iPad.

In addition, the email dump revealed three new email exchanges where Clinton transmitted classified information on the unsecured server. Each time, it involved sending information to Cooper, who had no security clearance.

Regarding the remaining 72,000 emails, a federal judge has ordered they be released to Judicial Watch pursuant their FOIA request by Sept. 28, 2018.