In all the noise regarding The Thing, I missed this Reuters report from Thursday night, Role of tech who set up Clinton’s server unknown to bosses at State:
Soon after Hillary Clinton’s arrival at the State Department in 2009, officials in the information technology office were baffled when told that a young technician would join them as a political appointee, newly disclosed emails show.The technician, Bryan Pagliano, was running the off-grid email server that Clinton had him set up in her New York home for her work as secretary of state. But even as years passed, Pagliano’s supervisors never learned of his most sensitive task, according to the department and one of his former colleagues.Pagliano’s immediate supervisors did not know the private server even existed until it was revealed in news reports last year, the colleague said, requesting anonymity because of a department ban on unauthorized interviews….Before joining the department, Pagliano had worked on Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign the previous year, and Clinton paid him separately to maintain the server, her campaign staff have said.
Pagliano appears to have operated outside the usual lines of tech control, the Reuters article continues:
The newly disclosed emails show Patrick Kennedy, the department’s under secretary for management, oversaw the hiring of Pagliano. But Clinton and the department continued to decline this week to say who, if anyone, in the government was aware of the email arrangement.”There was no permission to be asked,” Clinton said earlier this month. State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to say whether this was correct, citing the ongoing inquiries….Schedule C employees, who help presidential appointees and agency heads make policy, can only report to people appointed by the U.S. president or other senior executive officials. But no one like that worked in the IT office, so Kennedy ended up being Pagliano’s designated supervisor.The department told Reuters that Pagliano and Kennedy had little contact, and that Kennedy was unaware of the server or his subordinate’s role in running it. Nor did Wisecarver, Pagliano’s day-to-day boss, or Swart know, according to the former colleague, who said the IT office should have been informed.
Judicial Watch also discovered that Hillary’s supposed timeline as to when she started using the private server is not accurate, as started earlier than she admits:
Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained State Department documents from February 2009 containing emails that appear to contradict statements by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department and that she did not use her clintonemail.com email system until March 2009. The emails also contain more evidence of the battle between security officials in the State Department, National Security Administration, Clinton and her staff over attempts to obtain secure Blackberrys….The new emails show that despite prior concerns about security and cost, the NSA and State Department officials came up with a plan to modify six Blackberry devices for Clinton and her staff. A February 20, 2009 State Department email states:
Pat Donovan [head of Bureau of Diplomatic Security] tasked us with a memo that he wanted by today and that we finished last night and that it outlines the vulnerabilities and risks of BB use inside and outside a SCIF (because they’re essentially the same) and concludes with our collaboration with NSA to seek an acceptable solution for their desired BB use.
Despite this warning about using Blackberry “outside a SCIF,” Mrs. Clinton and her staff continued to use unsecured Blackberrys. The documents suggest a continued push for secure Blackberrys in late March 2009 but the documents are heavily redacted.
The Republican Primary circus has given Hillary the media distraction that keeps her email scandal out of the news. We’re all just waiting for the FBI shoe to drop.
The wife gave me permission to quote her:
I know Hillary’s not going to be indicted, but I can still pray, can’t I?
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