The State Department said on Monday that it has no emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal tech aide Bryan Pagliano, a department staffer who also maintained Clinton’s private email server.
Pagliano—who was paid by both Clinton and the State Department—was granted immunity by the FBI as part of its investigation into Clinton’s email server and has been cooperating with the agency.
Republicans have criticized the unusual hiring arrangement, and the Republican National Committee sued the State Department to disclose Pagliano’s emails. Although the IT aide was on the State Department payroll, officials said in a Monday court filing that they could not find any emails from him.
The Associated Press reported:
The State Department says in a new court filing that it can find no emails to or from a former Hillary Clinton aide who worked for the agency and also managed Clinton's private computer server during her stint as secretary of state.
The revelation was in a filing Monday by government lawyers for the department in a response to a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee. The GOP group had sued over its public records request for all work-related emails sent to or received by Clinton's former aide, Bryan Pagliano, between 2009 and 2013, covering most of Clinton's tenure.
Several of Clinton’s closest aides used email addresses on her private server, but they also maintained their own official State Department email accounts. Clinton is the only person tied to the controversy so far who was confirmed to have exclusively used an unofficial email account.
UPDATE 3:35 P.M.: The State Department clarified that it does have access to emails between Pagliano and other department officials, but it has not located his direct email file that covers the time period of Clinton's tenure. State Department Press Office Director Elizabeth Trudeau provided the statement to the Washington Free Beacon below:
"It is standard practice for the Department to decline comment on matters in litigation. That said, the Department disagrees with a number of assertions made in today’s filing, and will be responding in court. We will say, however, that this matter was reported in the press back in December of 2015.
The Department has searched for Mr. Pagliano’s email pst file and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure. To be clear, the Department does have records related to Mr. Pagliano and we are working with Congress and FOIA requesters to provide relevant material. The Department has located a pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the Department. We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano’s emails which the Department may have otherwise retained. When it comes to FOIA, the State Department works diligently to produce all responsive records in our possession.
The Department acknowledges that we must work to improve our systems for records management and retention. As part of this ongoing effort, the Department is now automatically archiving Secretary Kerry’s emails as well as the emails numerous senior staff."