The State Department likely issued Blackberrys to two Hillary Clinton aides and later destroyed them, the agency said in a court filing on Wednesday.
Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and her deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, were given the government-issued devices, a government attorney, Joseph E. Macmanus told U.S. District Court judge Emmet Sullivan.
The government was responding to Sullivan’s order to provide information about what servers, hardware or other devices may have contained information responsive to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The group is looking for information related to Abedin’s status as a special government employee. Abedin worked for the State Department at the same time she worked for Teneo Holdings, a consulting company with close ties to the Clintons.
“[The State Department] believes that Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin were each issued BlackBerry devices. [The State Department] has not located any such device at the Department.”
Macmanus further stated that when Blackberrys are given back to the State Department, they are either reconstructed and given to a new employee or destroyed.
“Because the devices issued to Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin would have been outdated models, in accordance with standard operating procedures those devices would have been destroyed or excessed,” Macmanus said.
Macmanus also confirmed that Clinton herself was not issued a State Department Blackberry.
“The Department does not believe that any personal computing device was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department,” Macmanus stated.
Clinton did, however, use a Blackberry of her own to send and receive work-related emails while she was in office. The security of Clinton’s use of the device has raised questions about its security.
During a press conference on Wednesday, State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the devices were reset and that no information from them was kept or backed up.
In a statement, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said that the new filing is further evidence that the State Department is trying to “justice its stonewalling.”
“The questions just keep popping up,” Fitton said.
“If the State Department was not providing secure email devices to Mrs. Clinton, who was? Best Buy? Target? Mrs. Clinton clearly did whatever she wanted, without regard to national security or federal records keeping laws.”