Kennedy’s ongoing resistance is the latest skirmish in a three-month battle between the State Department and the two federal watchdogs over how many of Clinton’s e-mails contain classified information. Since June, the department has pushed back forcefully against the IGs’ repeated warnings that reams of classified material sat on Clinton’s private server. A preliminary probe by the IGs in June found that State Department attorneys had overruled findings by their subordinates that some of the e-mails contained national-security secrets. Without sustained pressure from both IGs — and two bombshell announcements the watchdogs made on July 23 and August 11 — the public would likely still be unaware that classified materials were found in e-mails on the server, that these materials were classified at the time of their sending, and that in at least two cases these materials were Top Secret.