AP Photo Data firm gives FBI all backed-up Clinton emails

A Connecticut-based tech company that backed-up Hillary Clinton’s personal email account turned over a “hardware device” to the FBI Tuesday, the company said in a statement, adding that the FBI now has all of the Clinton emails the company had in its possession.

Colorado-based tech company Platte River Networks — which maintained Clinton’s server from the time she left office until it was turned over to the FBI in August — had partnered with Datto, the Connecticut-based data protection business, to ensure Clinton’s emails were properly backed up.


But while Clinton’s representatives and Platte River only asked Datto to provide an on-site back-up of her messages, they discovered in August that Datto had also been backing up her emails off-site in a cloud.

The news, first reported by McClatchy Tuesday, heightened the possibility that copies of Clinton’s messages — including roughly 30,000 “personal” messages she said she deleted — exist somewhere and could be recovered by the FBI.

“With the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, yesterday, Tuesday, October 6, Datto delivered a hardware device to the FBI containing all backed up data related to Platte Rivers Networks' client known to be in its possession,” Datto said in a statement.

It’s unclear if the cloud back-up includes messages from Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. The company says it had “no role in monitoring the content or source of data stored by Managed Service Providers clients such as Platte River Networks.”

Meanwhile, Platte River, at the FBI’s request, is turning over the Datto device it used for on-site back-up of Clinton’s system, the Daily Caller reported Wednesday.

Platte River has already turned over Clinton’s server to the FBI after the intelligence community inspector general expressed concern about the number of classified emails on the unsecured system, including two messages the intelligence community said were “top secret.”