Fox News: State Dept. Admits Blackberries Used by 2 Clinton Aides Likely Destroyed

HERRIDGE: “Central court here in Washington D.C., at this hour, brings together lawyers from Judicial Watch who are suing for Clinton’s Benghazi records as well as State Department lawyers who wanted an extra week to deal with the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s devices as well as her aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, but the judge only pushed the meeting back an hour.”
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FARRELL: “My interpretation of the judge’s ruling is that, frankly, he is fed up, that he’s – he’s been stonewalled by the State Department, that they have refused to answer very specific questions that he’s asked and it’s an astounding demonstration of contempt.”
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HERRIDGE: “And buried in this recent court filing is the admission by the State Department that Mrs. Clinton did not use a government issued device that was certified as safe to handle sensitive or classified information and, as you mentioned, that the BlackBerry’s used by aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were likely destroyed. This takes really the risk to the national security data, Gretchen, to an entirely new level.”
CARLSON: “OK. So, what is the State Department saying about her devices?”
HERRIDGE: “Well, Fox News was first to confirm in March of this year that Mrs. Clinton used an iPad that was not certified as secure against the instructions of State Department IT specialists. And the campaign so far has been silent on this issue. Fox put the question to the State Department earlier this week.”
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UNKNOWN REPORTER: “Have all of Secretary Clinton’s and her associates’ devices that were tied to the email server been certified as secured by the State Department?”
KIRBY: “I’m not aware of any such certification on that and I would refer you to former Secretary Clinton and her staff.”
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HERRIDGE: “So the bottom line is that, if the iPad’s geo locating and backup functions were not disabled the data was vulnerable to a universe of hackers including those that are state sponsored such as China, Russia and Iran, raising the likelihood that foreign entities had real-time access to this classified data and this would likely qualify as a violation of what’s called 18 U.S. Code 793-F, this is the gross negligence in the handling of national security data. As a final point, on that U.S. Code it does not have to be classified information. Simply more broadly, anything to do with the nation’s security. So the Clinton campaign’s explanation that none of this was marked classified won’t even pass the threshold with this statute, Gretchen.”
CARLSON: “That’s so fascinating, very interesting development. Catherine Herridge, thank you.”