McGovern was one 17 members of the intelligence community to sign a letter to President Obama urging him to speed up a conspicuously slow report on the Clinton email investigation, saying, in part, “If you choose, instead, to give precedence to politics over national security, the American people will be deprived of timely appreciation of the gravity of the harm done.
McGovern stated that, "What we are demanding is that the FBI do its job," and that, "What we’re involved in here is really a charade."
Clinton’s emails included information about Special Action Programs (SAP), considered to be highly sensitive information. Loud & Clear Host Brian Becker asked McGovern to expound on SAPs and why they must be handled delicately.
"These are incredibly sensitive programs, they’re above top secret. What they involve are covert action programs, what the targets are of our drone strike, all manner of very sensitive things."
McGovern emphasized the seriousness of Clinton’s offense, and detailed how improper handling of sensitive information can have fatal consequences.
"Despite the guidelines, Clinton’s used mobile devices to conduct official business on a personal email account and private server." McGovern said,"That disregards or prescinds all manners of security regulations. Now why do we intelligence professionals feel so strongly about this? Because we know, perhaps as no one else, knows, how serious this can be. How people can be killed, how billion dollar programs can be compromised, how liaison relationships that we worked decades to develop and cultivate are flushed down the drain."
McGovern described how he and a group calling itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) believe that it’s no coincidence that the Clinton investigation stalled just as the presidential race heats up.
"We conclude that this [investigation] is being slow-walked until the California primary is behind us. Maybe they want to slow walk it until the Democratic Convention," he declared.
McGovern fears that if a bad actor has possession of Clinton’s emails they could use the information to exercise undue influence over the White House.
"If that happens, whoever holds this information has the kind of blackmail potential that would make J. Edgar Hoover’s mouth water."
