Hillary Clinton State Dept.

State Department Photo

FBI Wants to Know More About Clinton Emails
| published August 5, 2015 |

By Thursday Review staff

According to The Washington Post, the FBI is investigating the circumstances and details surrounding Hillary Clinton’s privately-crafted email account—the email platform she used while serving as U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2014. The FBI has been in contact with the Denver-based company which was contracted to establish Clinton’s email account, several individuals who may have helped build the so-called homebrew server, and Clinton family attorney David Kendall.

The issue of Clinton’s emails and the server—built from scratch—housed in the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York, has become a distraction for the former Secretary of State—now a front-runner for the Presidency in 2016.

The matter of her emails came to light early this year when it was revealed, after inquiries by the Associated Press and other media groups, that Clinton had not used a government email account nor has she used servers housed within government agencies. Instead, while serving as the U.S. top diplomat, Clinton managed her emails by using an independently-crafted account established on a server in a room in the Clinton home. The email account and server were both originally developed as far back as 2008, while Clinton was still a Presidential candidate—but linked to other email accounts used by the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Records of the internet provider for the Clinton home shows the address for mailing and billing purposes for the service is the same as the Clinton Foundation. A Clinton campaign staffer with technical skills is believed to have built and activated the server used in the Clinton home.

Clinton has said that she used the email account only as a matter of convenience, and not as a way to avoid transparency.

According to federal laws and guidelines, government employees are required to use only email accounts established using the .gov extension when conducting official business. Further, top government officials are required to maintain such email accounts according to strict guidelines established by the Federal Records Act and rules crafted under the Technology Management Reform Act of 1996. Furthermore, State Department criteria establish that all sensitive communications be handled through highly secure servers and equipment managed by Department computer and security experts.

In early spring, as the State Department was preparing to release some of Clinton’s emails, Clinton conceded to reporters that she had deleted tens of thousands of emails which she deemed personal or of a family nature. Republicans in Congress pounced on the email imbroglio as evidence that Clinton was seeking to hide—among other things—correspondence relating to the terror attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The FBI also wants access, according to the Washington Post, to flash drives which may be in attorney Kendall’s possession—drives which may contain sensitive or critical data and correspondence. Kendall announced in a press statement that he and the Clintons were cooperating with the FBI in its inquiry.

The FBI, according to the Post, is currently focusing its investigation on the issue of security and the proper or improper handling of classified or sensitive materials in Clinton’s emails, and not on the parallel issue of violations of the Federal Records Act. The FBI says that the Denver-based company which facilitated the Clinton email account is called Platte River Networks, and according to several news sources the company’s attorneys are not commenting at this time. The Clinton campaign has not made any public statement on this latest development.

Related Thursday Review articles:

White House Knew of Clinton’s Private Email Account; Thursday Review; July 1, 2015.

Clinton’s Missing Emails; Critical Documents Deleted; Thursday Review; June 26, 2015.