By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 19, 2015
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.
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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.
All three used email accounts not
 issued by the State Department to
 conduct government business, and
 all three are now under court orders
 to return those documents to the
 department to belatedly comply
with open-records laws.
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
 records keeping laws,” Mr. Fitton said.
The State Department said Ms. Mills
and Ms. Abedin were issued BlackBerry
devices, which were likely turned in
at the end of their service.
“Because the devices issued to
Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin would
have been outdated models, in
accordance with standard operating
procedures those devices would have
 been destroyed or excessed,” the
 department said.
Ms. Mills‘ lawyer has told the court
she returned her emails to the
 government earlier this year,
while Ms. Abedin’s lawyer said
they will return her emails by next week.