Company that managed private email server says it has no indication the device has been ‘wiped’ – and Republican senators say they may seek a review

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The company that managed Hillary Clinton’s private email server when she was secretary of state says it has no knowledge that the server was “wiped”.

That could mean more than 30,000 emails Clinton says she deleted from the device could be recovered, according to a report in the Washington Post.



Clinton has said personal correspondence sent and received during the four years she was secretary of state were deleted from the server. About as many emails pertaining to administration business have been turned over to the State Department, which is reviewing them and releasing them periodically by court order.

Deleting emails is not the same at wiping a server. Deleted emails often can be recovered from a device that has not been “wiped”, which PC Magazine defines as “a security measure when selling, giving away or retiring a computer. A file wipe completely erases the data from the hard disk”.

A spokesman for Platte River Networks, the Denver-based firm that has managed the system, said the company has no information indicating the server was wiped, the Post reported on Saturday.

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Platte River took over the device in June 2013, about four months after Clinton left the State Department, and turned it over to the FBI last month, the newspaper reported.

“All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped,” spokesman Andy Boian told the newspaper.

Republican senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the judiciary committee, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the homeland security committee, said on Saturday they would seek a review of the deleted emails if they could be recovered, the Post reported.

As she pursues the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton has faced relentless questions and criticism regarding her use of a private email account for government business. The FBI has been investigating the security of Clinton’s email setup.

Clinton asserts that she had the right under government rules to decide which emails were private and to delete them, a claim the Justice Department supported in a recent filing with the US district court in Washington.

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is seeking access to her emails under a public records lawsuit.