Malley recently found himself suspended from the administration pending a State Department adjudication of the alleged classified mishandling. Significantly, Malley was placed on unpaid leave as Diplomatic Security investigated what he had done, which is unusual in such cases.

That detail implied that Malley was in hotter water than many assumed. Since he was placed on unpaid rather than paid administrative leave, we weren’t dealing with merely mishandling classified, but we didn’t know much. Now we do.