Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s mysterious email server has been in a private data center in New Jersey since 2013, that is, until the IT company the former secretary of state hired to maintain the hardware handed the “blank” device over to the FBI Wednesday.
Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, informed the Department of State in a letter Wednesday that the company hired to manage and maintain the server, Denver-based Platte River Networks, was turning it over to the Department of Justice. Kendall also told State he handed over three thumb drives that contained Clinton’s emails.
The Washington Post reported the FBI recently contacted the company to obtain the server. That move followed reports that the Intelligence Community inspector general had discovered that at least two emails maintained in Clinton’s records contained “Top Secret” information.
The server was housed in the basement of Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y. home while she was secretary of state. After she left office, Clinton hired Platte River Networks, which moved the system from her home to a private data center in New Jersey.
Barbara Wells, an attorney for the company, told The Post agents picked the server up at around 4 p.m. Wednesday. But she said the hardware is “now blank” and no longer contains any useful information.
“The information had been migrated over to a different server for purposes of transition,” said Wells. The transfer was carried out in June 2013, she told The Post.
“To my knowledge the data on the old server is not available now on any servers or devices in Platte River Network’s control.”
It is unclear whether that means the data once maintained on Clinton’s server is gone altogether or whether there is another device that contains Clinton’s records. Wells did not respond to an email from The Daily Caller.
While Wells said the FBI assured Platte River Networks that it is not the target of any investigation, Republican lawmakers have questions for the company.
Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Ron Johnson sent a letter to Platte River’s chairman Treve Suazo asking for information about the security of Clinton’s server.
“Given that the server was used to conduct official State Department business, questions have been raised regarding whether classified information was stored on the private server,” Johnson wrote in a letter obtained by McClatchy. He also sought to find out “if that data was secure, who had access to that material and whether all official documents were appropriately preserved.”
