State Department Destroyed Clinton Aides’ BlackBerrys

The State Department destroyed the BlackBerry devices issued to two top aides of former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and never issued Mrs. Clinton a device at all, officials told a federal court Wednesday in a filing that raises still more security questions.

The filing came a day before officials will have to appear in court to detail the steps they took to try to track down Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and whatever computers or other devices she may have used to send them.

Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm, has sued to get a look at the emails of Mrs. Clinton and two top aides at State: Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.

After Mrs. Clinton said she had deleted messages from her server, Judicial Watch prodded the State Department to try to dig up her electronic devices to see if any messages could be recovered.

State, on Wednesday, said that was impossible.

“[The department] does not believe that any personal computing device was issued by the department to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has not located any such device,” administration officials said.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said that means Mrs. Clinton, who did use such devices during her time in office, must have issued one to herself — raising major national security questions.

“If the State Department was not providing secure email devices to Mrs. Clinton, who was? Best Buy? Target? Mrs. Clinton clearly did whatever she wanted, without regard to national security or federal record-keeping laws,” Mr. Fitton said.

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