There’s another data company involved in the Hillary Clinton email saga. The FBI is trying to get a hold of Datto Inc.’s backup server to see if any of Clinton’s State Department emails can be found on it. It appears the company was hired to be the backup in May 2013, which is after Clinton left the State Department. The Washington Post writes that could mean Datto has just a few Clinton’s emails. Of course, it also means they could have a few years’ worth.

A Datto official said that investigators may be able to recover the e-mails if the data existed at the time the company was hired in May 2013 and had not been altered since.

A spokesman for Platte River, Andy Boian, said his company assumed that Datto would have retained data for only a short period and older e-mails would no longer be available.

CNN writes Clinton Executive Service Corp. handled the financing of the back up server, but Platte River actually bought it. So whether this was all done at the suggestion of Platte River or if Clinton cried out “BRING ME…ANOTHER SERVER!” like one of the Knights Who Say Ni isn’t clear. At the same time, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson sent Datto a letter suggesting the Clintons wanted to figure out if any of the backups could be deleted. He even points out Platte River workers may have been worried about the data backups, according to one employee email.

“I just think if we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups, and that we can go public with our statement saying we have backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30days (sic), it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better.”

Platte River is denying any sort of cover up, but why wouldn’t they? At this point, all they’re trying to do is be some small company in Colorado which just happened to be contacted by Hillary Clinton to store her emails. It’s possible that’s all they are, but that sure doesn’t appear likely if the reports of Platte River talking to Datto about the backup are true. Clinton’s camp is trying to deflect as much as possible, but this isn’t really going away.

This entire thing is so complicated, so…Clinton. This was a sitting Secretary of State using a private server and email to conduct government business. This same Secretary of State decided it was okay to get classified information sent to her email, even though there are former government workers out there who say the information was “born classified.” The server was never really secure to begin with because Russian hackers went after it at least five times. It’s absolutely amazing, and yet makes total sense that Clinton would have this set up and damn the consequences. Clinton can claim all she wants this private server was done “for convenience,” but is it really convenient when it appears you might be breaking federal law and maybe trying to hide information from the government at the same time?

It still doesn’t mean this is going to bring the entire house down around Team Hillary and end with her doing a spinoff of “Orange is the New Black.” It’s still up to a judge to decide whether all the emails should be made public, and it’s doubtful this Justice Department will ever pursue charges if it turns out Clinton did break the law. One thing DOJ and Judicial Watch are fighting in court over is whether Clinton’s server is similar to transcripts of phone conversations another secretary of state had. Here’s what POLITICO recounted on yesterday’s court hearing.

Judicial Watch contended that Clinton’s routine, exclusive use of her private server transformed the data in her account into government records.

“We don’t believe it was a personal email system because it was exclusively used while she was the head of the agency,” [  Judicial Watch attorney Michael ] Bekesha said.

[ Justice Department attorney Marcia ] Berman called that “an incredibly novel legal theory” and she said it was foreclosed by a 1980 Supreme Court decision that held FOIA could not be used to obtain near-transcripts of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s phone conversations. Kissinger sent those records to the Library of Congress on the condition that they not be released until five years after his death.

“It is very analogous” to the Clinton situation, Berman argued. “The government has, respectfully, done even more than it’s required to do in a FOIA case.”

Judicial Watch pointed out the server was used on a regular basis and the Kissinger conversations were typed out by his secretary. Judge Emmet Sullivan didn’t tip his hand during yesterday’s court hearing, and who knows if the FBI is going to claim the records can’t be released because of their investigation. So the wheels of something (justice?) are moving extremely slow and whether voters will remember this going into next year’s primaries is still yet to be seen. At the same time, it’ll sure be interesting what happens to Clinton’s poll numbers if, and when, Sullivan makes his decision. There’s another status conference this afternoon on the Clinton emails, and it’s curious to see if Judicial Watch attorneys will mention Datto’s apparent role in Clintonemail.