WASHINGTON — A forensic examination of Hillary Clinton’s private computer server could unearth more details than what she put in her e-mails. It could answer lingering questions about the security of her system, who had access to it and whether outsiders tried to crack its contents.
Clinton last week handed over to the FBI her private server, which she used to send, receive and store e-mails during her four years as secretary of state. The bureau is holding the machine in protective custody after the intelligence community’s inspector general raised concerns recently that classified information had traversed the system.
Clinton leads the race for Democratic presidential nomination by wide margin even though questions about her use of the server have since shadowed her campaign.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in North Las Vegas, Nev., Clinton said she was “very comfortable that this will eventually get resolved and the American people will have plenty of time to figure it out.”
She added: “In retrospect, this didn’t turn out to be convenient at all, and I regret that this has become such a cause célèbre. But that does not change the facts.” She reiterated that what she did was “legally permitted” and said she did not send any e-mails marked “classified.”
Clinton’s e-mails show some messages she wrote were censored by the State Department for national security reasons before they were released publicly. The government blacked out those messages under a provision of the Freedom of Information Act intended to protect material that had been deemed and properly classified for purposes of national defense or foreign policy.
What hasn’t been released: data that could show how secure her system was, whether someone tried to break in and who else had accounts on her system. A lawyer for Platte River Networks, the Colorado-based technology services company that began managing the Clinton server in 2013, said the server was provided to the FBI last week.
A computer server isn’t a marvel of modern technology. Just like a home desktop, the computer’s data is stored on a hard drive. It’s unclear whether the drive that Clinton used was thoroughly erased before it was turned over to federal agents. If it had been, it’s also uncertain whether the FBI could recover the data.
