The saga continues. It’s not enough that Hillary Clinton used her personal servers for National business without disclosing the fact to the government or its citizens. It’s not even enough the security on those servers could not be assured at levels the government would require for someone with clearance for confidential and even “eyes only” communications.
But we recently learned that she hired a small data storage firm for the backup of information on those servers (kept in a bathroom closet of a loft apartment), who in turn contracted overflow backup – some of which went to the “cloud.” And as it turns out, Russian hackers got hold of Madam Secretary’s private email address and sent her a back-door virus, so no one is certain what information the hackers accessed.
The company providing server backup, Platte River Networks, is small, but they charged big for their services – submitting an invoice to Clinton’s accounting firm, Marcum, LLP for nearly $20K for the backup services covering from late in July to the end of August.
In addition to these charges, Platte River submitted an invoice for PR and legal services on their behalf while dealing with Congress and turning over their servers for inspection. Those fees would fall under out-of-pocket reimbursements in most contracts – and that bill may be as high as $48.5K. They surely didn’t count on this headache, and didn’t need it.
The PR Pro hired by her server company – who handled the Hillary fallout – was Andy Boian, Founder of Dovetail, an experienced rising star in the world of communication and PR. Boian founded Dovetail Solutions in Denver, Colorado, and was selected as the recipient of the PRSA Public Relations Team of the Year for 2015 following one of the most successful campaigns of the year: the grand opening of the Denver Union Station.
In his mid-20s, Boian served as Senior Vice President for a large telecommunication firm in Denver before running a successful campaign becoming Colorado’s representative in the Democratic National Committee. From Dovetail Solutions’ website, “He has been the recipient of the Denver Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” award, the Colorado Statesman’s “Fifty for the Future” and Metropolitan State University of Denver’s “Mover and Shaker” award.
These invoices are for service after Ms. Clinton left the State Department, but the servers still contained information from her time in that office. Proving, nothing ever really goes away once it is on the internet – or the cloud for that matter.