If Hilary Clinton’s email troubles weren’t bad enough, it appears that two archive of her emails, one on a laptop and the other on a thumb drive, were lost in the mail. According to the FBI’s report, meant as a reference for writing a future book, the archives were created in 2013, before she turned them over and any classified material was redacted.
The two archive copies were originally supposed to be stored in Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington, DC, but an aide forgot to give them to her staff. Once the aide found the archived laptop months later, she unsuccessfully attempted to transfer the files to Platte River Networks, which managed the email system, but ultimately shipped the laptop to the home of a Platte River Networks employee.
That employee transferred the emails to a Gmail account he created in order to download them to the Platte River server. The employee was instructed to wipe the hard drive after the transfer was complete, but opted only to delete the emails without doing a complete wipe.
After the employee deleted the emails he then shipped it again to another Clinton aide, but that particular office was moving and the laptop was lost in the transition. Ultimately, transferring Clinton’s emails to two storage devices that were shipped and a third party email platform opened them up to exposure to individuals that did not have clearance to view them. The thumb drive containing the archived copy was never found.