A high-ranking State Department official attempted to provide Hillary Clinton with two different Blackberry phones after Clinton’s personal device stopped working, but Clinton’s staff rejected that offer.
Amb. Stephen Mull, then-executive secretary of the State Department, said in Aug. 2011 that the agency could provide both a personal and official Blackberry to Clinton “to replace her personal unit which is malfunctioning (possibly because of her personal email server is down),” according to emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Daily Caller and watchdog group Cause of Action that were made public Monday.
Mull warned a handful of Clinton’s top aides that emails on the official, State-issued Blackberry “would mask her identity” but “would also be subject to FOIA requests.”
Huma Abedin, then Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and now a prominent campaign staffer, responded by suggesting the State-issued Blackberry therefore didn’t “make a whole lot of sense.”
Critics have long accused Clinton of setting up an elaborate private email network at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home in an effort to circumvent open records laws, a charge she has repeatedly denied.
Emails made public through a number of FOIA lawsuits have indicated Clinton’s server went down on multiple occasions, raising questions about the level of security the former secretary of state maintained on her network.
While Clinton has argued nothing on her server was marked classified at the time it was sent, the FBI is presently investigating allegations that classified material passed onto her server inappropriately.
Clinton said Sunday she has not been contacted by the FBI in the course of that investigation.
An inspector general report made public Jan. 7 indicated dozens of State Department officials knew Clinton was using a personal email to shield her government communications.
