Hillary Clinton Leaked Classified Nuclear Window-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Hillary Clinton leaked classified information about the nation’s protocols for launching nuclear weapons during the final presidential debate by revealing that the nuclear launch window is four minutes.
The Truth:
It’s not classified information that the nation’s nuclear launch window is roughly four minutes, so claims that Hillary Clinton “leaked” that information are false.
Rumors that Clinton had erred in revealing classified information about how the U.S. would launch nuclear weapons began circulating during the debate. Clinton cited the short nuclear window while criticizing Donald Trump’s previous policy statements on nuclear proliferation:
…The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. There’s about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so. And that’s why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.
Clinton critics immediately claimed on social media that she had committed “treason” or had blundered in revealing information about America’s nuclear launch protocols — but a simple Google search reveals that info about the four-minute nuclear window can easily be found online.
A report by Bloomberg, for example, provides a minute-by-minute accounting of the steps that Clinton or Trump would have to take to launch a nuclear attack. The article concluded that the window for nuclear missiles launched from silos would take “about five minutes” and missiles launched form submarines would take about 15 minutes to strike their targets.
And, while Clinton said that the nuclear window was “about four minutes,” we were able to find references to a four-minute nuclear window going all the way back to the cold war. It can easily be found on Wikipedia, too.
Given all that, we’re calling claims that Clinton leaked classified information about the nuclear window “fiction.”