WASHINGTON – U.S Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, today sent letters to three companies that provided software and services to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that played a role in maintaining her private email server. This latest bicameral effort to request information from the four companies builds on earlier investigations initiated separately by Chairman Smith and Chairman Johnson.
“On July 5, 2016, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey announced the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation into Secretary Clinton. While the FBI did not recommend charges against Secretary Clinton, it did identify numerous security concerns regarding Secretary Clinton’s use of a private server and email account. Specifically, Director Comey said that ‘it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.’ This finding was based on the fact that ‘hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.’ In addition, Director Comey raised the concern about the possibility that Secretary Clinton’s server was hacked because of the fact that her personal e-mail domain was known by a large number of people and “she also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries,” Smith and Johnson said in the letter.
“[Your company] declined to provide complete responses to the Committees’ inquiries, citing that it did not have its client’s consent to produce documents or information. Therefore, we are writing to jointly reiterate the previous requests for information and materials that [the company] has yet to provide. The information that Committees seek from [your company] will offer better insight into the security and data backup capabilities of Secretary Clinton’s private server and what potential vulnerabilities to federal records and sensitive information need to be mitigated,” Smith and Johnson added.
Full copies of the letters can be found below:
Letter to Mr. Austin McChord, CEO, Datto, Inc.
Letter to Mr. Victor Nappe, CEO, SECNAP Network Security Corp.
Letter to Mr. Treve Suazo, CEO, Platte River Networks