A court filing submitted Wednesday by a senior official at the Department of State said that official Blackberry devices issued to two top aides to former secretary of State Hillary Clinton can not be located and were probably erased and then destroyed or “excessed” as part of the Department’s normal handling of outdated technology.
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The official also said former Secretary of State Clinton appeared never to have had a BlackBerry from her agency or any other official gadget.
The hearing was scheduled at the request of Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit that has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act lawsuits pertaining to the Benghazi terrorist attacks and Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server for work-related matters. In her autobiography, and in correspondence with the State Department’s IT personnel, she expressed her strong preference for Apple products, but somehow got herself photographed using a BlackBerry, and now the department says it doesn’t think it ever issued her one of the specially-modified devices it prepares, but it’s not really sure, because it doesn’t keep very careful track of them, it just trashes or reissues secure phones without filing any serialized paperwork…
The State 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 wrote in the filing.
Due to JW’s suit, Hillary Clinton was forced to sign a sworn declaration, under penalty of perjury earlier this month, that Huma Abedin did have an email address on Clinton’s private server, which she used to conduct “government business” at times.
“The Department does not believe that a reasonable search for records responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA request requires a search of former Secretary Clinton’s server”, administration officials wrote in a status report to the judge.
That wasn’t good enough for Judicial Watch or, apparently, Judge Sullivan.
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. Mrs. Clinton has a problem with the truth and obeying the law – and that is why a federal judge has requested information from Mrs. Clinton, the State Department, and her closest advisers.
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“Every time the State Department tries to justify its stonewalling, one more bit of information arises. Best Buy? Target? Mrs. Clinton clearly did whatever she wanted, without regard to national security or federal records keeping laws”. “We are fighting for the public’s right to know what Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin and others were sending and receiving during their four years running the State Department”.
