Hillary Clinton, seen here during a campaign rally, has faced continued criticism over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state from 2012 until 2014. Emails sent and received by Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's IT aide who set up the server, have been lost, according to the State Department. File photo by Khaled Sayed/UPI |
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WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- The Department of State said it has lost all archived copies of emails sent and received by Bryan Pagliano, Hillary Clinton's IT aide who set up and maintained her scrutinized private email server.
State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau on Monday said the agency could not find any Personal Storage Table, or .pst, files that serve to store copies of emails and other items. She said some of Pagliano's emails had been recovered through the Freedom of Information Act and emails sent to the U.S. Congress while Clinton served as secretary of state.
"The department has searched for Mr. Pagliano's email PST file, and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton's tenure. To be clear, the department does have records related to Mr. Pagliano and we are working with Congress and FOIA requesters to provide relevant material," Trudeau said during a press briefing. "The department has located a PST from Mr. Pagliano's recent work at the department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the department. We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano's emails which the department may have otherwise retained."
Trudeau said State Department officials will continue to search for Pagliano's PST files. Clinton's decision to use private servers during her 2012-14 tenure as state secretary may have violated Freedom of Information Act laws demanding all work emails be archived in government systems for public view.
Clinton's practice of keeping her emails on a private server has come under scrutiny by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Pagliano was granted immunity in exchange for cooperating with investigators months after he initially invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to speak with officials.
