While serving as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton used multiple private email servers to communicate regarding government business, according to the State Department. Additionally, it was revealed that Clinton never had a government (.gov) email address while she was serving in her post--we'll talk about which email address she used in a moment--and her aides did not take any actions to preserve the emails sent through her personal account. This prompted an investigation by the FBI to determine if Clinton intentionally put classified information at risk.
2. Why does it matter?
Clinton handed over 30,000 emails to the State Department, of which 110 contained classified information at the time they either were sent or received, according to the FBI's findings. During the investigation, though, Clinton asserted that none of the emails she sent or received were classified at the time. The biggest implication has been the potential threat to national security. While the contents of the emails have not fully been released, if they had contained sensitive information it could have possibly fallen into the wrong hands. As noted by the New York Times, Comey said it was "possible" that enemy foreign governments had accessed Clinton's personal email account.
The second biggest implication is that of transparency. The Federal Records Act requires that all communication in certain branches of government be recorded on government servers, and it forbids the use of a personal email account for government business, unless those emails are then copied and archived. However, there are a lot of technicalities involved, and there is evidence that other government officials had violated the act. As Alex Howard wrote for the Sunlight Foundation, there is also evidence that Clinton tried to control the discoverability of the emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which could set a precedent for limiting public access to government records. It is also believed that Clinton deleted 31,000 emails deemed personal in nature before turning the emails over to the State Department.
3. When did it start?
When she was appointed secretary of state in 2009, Clinton began using the email address
hdr22@clintonmail.com, tied to a personal server. Clinton's personal email server was first discovered in 2012, by a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi. In 2013, hacker Guccifer claimed to have accessed Clinton's personal email account and released emails that were allegedly related to the Benghazi attack.
The next year, in the summer of 2015, the State Department began asking Clinton for her emails correspondence, and she responded by delivering boxes containing more than 30,000 printed emails. In early 2015, the New York Times reported that Clinton had been using her personal email exclusively, and never had a government email address. A federal watchdog group issued an 83-page report condemning the "systemic weaknesses" of Clinton's email practices in May. On Tuesday, the FBI concluded its investigation and recommended against any charges.
4. What tech was used
When Clinton was running for president in 2008, she had a private server installed at her home in Chappaqua, New York. The domains clintonemail.com, wjcoffice.com, and presidentclinton.com, which were registered to a man named Eric Hoteham, all pointed to that server. In 2013, a Denver-based IT company called Platte River Networks was hired to manage the server, but wasn't cleared to work with classified information. The company executives received death threats for taking on the contract. It was later discovered that multiple private servers were used for Clinton's email.
Clinton used a BlackBerry phone to communicate during her tenure as secretary of state, including sending and receiving emails through her private server in New York. The State Department expressed concern about the security of the device. Clinton had requested the NSA provide a strengthened BlackBerry, similar to the one used by President Obama. But, her request was denied. Instead, the NSA requested that Clinton use a secure Windows Phone known as the Sectera Edge, but she opted to continue using her personal BlackBerry.
