Hillary Clinton's campaign is actively cooperating with an
FBI investigation into whether the email system she used
during her time as Secretary of State was secure enough to
handle classified information.
Nick Merrill, a Clinton press secretary, said they are
working with the FBI to quickly resolve he issue.
"She did not send nor receive any emails that were marked
classified at the time," Merrill told CNN. . "We want to
ensure that appropriate procedures are followed as these
emails are reviewed while not unduly delaying the release of
her emails. We want that to happen as quickly and as
transparently as possible."
The Washington Post reported that the bureau
has contacted Platte River Networks, a Denver-based
technology company that managed the system. Clinton's setup
included several private email addresses and a private
server located at her Chappaqua, N.Y. home.
According to the Post, the bureau is not investigating
Clinton herself, but rather the security behind the unusual
email setup.
Clinton's lawyer David KenŽdall is also the subject of an
FBI investigation regarding the security of a thumb drive he
had that contained Clinton's emails.
"The government is seeking assurance about the storage of
those materials. We are actively cooperating," KenŽdall told
the Post.
Platte River Networks reportedly took over management of
Clinton's email system in 2013 after years of having
low-level Clinton staffers and an IT specialist with the
State Department run it.
That specialist, Bryan Pagliano, served as Clinton's 2008
presidential campaign IT director before the State
Department hired him in 2009. He managed Clinton's email
setup, reports the Post, and had to make several trips to
Chappaqua to repair the system.
One such repair was needed when the server went down after
Hurricane Sandy hit the New York area in 2012. At that
point, reports the Post, Clinton and her team decided they
needed to seek an outside company to keep the system secure
and working as designed.
Further, the Post reports that Clinton's email server was
first installed during her 2008 presidential campaign. It
was brought in to replace one used by former President Bill
Clinton because that one was too small to handle Clinton's
email thanks to her position in the cabinet.
Clinton's email controversy began last year,
when investigators looking into what
happened during the 2012 Benghazi attacks noticed they were
missing correspondence from Clinton. It spiraled out of
control from there, and the scandal has dogged Clinton for
months.
Clinton, who announced her candidacy for president in April,
claimed she used the email setup so she could get away
with using one phone instead of a
personal one and one provided by the State Department.
Critics have said the system
was vulnerable to hackers because it
was outside of the government's secure servers.
The results of a poll released Thursday, meanwhile, show
Clinton's
favorability rating has been sliding
since 2012 and is now at 44 percent.