Datto, based in Norwalk, Conn., became the second data storage firm to become entangled in the inquiry into Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, which has sparked a furor that has dogged her campaign.
Advertisement
“Any chance you found an old email with their directive to cut the backup back in Oct-Feb”, one Platte River employee asked another, according to McClatchy.
However, documents obtained by the committee show “confusion” among Platte River employees when they realized that data from Clinton’s server “was potentially being sent to Datto’s off-site location”, Johnson wrote.
Platte River has complied fully with the FBI investigation and a subsequent probe from the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which has requested a mostly different set of materials than the law enforcement agency, he said. It could answer lingering questions about the security of her system, who had access to it and whether outsiders tried to crack its contents.
The report comes amid ongoing scrutiny over the security of Clinton’s server and the scope through which classified documents were shared over it.
In September, the AP reported that Russian hackers tried to break into Clinton’s server at least five times by sending malicious emails.
Clinton will testify in front of the House Benghazi committee October. 22 about using a private email address, routed through a personal server, to conduct all of her business. It was looking for how top-secret information – those nuggets that “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security” – went from the State Department’s secure network to Clinton’s server.
Datto will give the Federal Bureau of Investigation a piece of hardware it used to store client data in the hopes of recovering the deleted emails.
At this point, 400 pieces of documentation found on Clinton’s private server have been deemed classified.
The servers were part of the State Department bureau of information resource management. Clinton herself may be liable for allowing the classified information to pass through or stored on her private server.
The employee feared that cutting the backups would make the firm look like it was participating in a cover-up on behalf of Clinton Executive Service Corp., which was footing the bill for its services.
Many computer experts have questioned Clinton’s use of the private system while in office.
Advertisement
Clinton has not said what, if any, firewall or threat protection was used on her email server before June 2013, including the time she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and the server was kept in her home in the New York City suburbs. Datto was hired to help back up data in May 2013 by Platte River Networks, the Colorado-based tech company that managed Clinton’s server and has already been cooperating with the FBI investigation.
