Friday was Sept. 2 but it may have felt like Dec. 25 to Hillary Clinton's foes: The FBI
released a 47-page report on its investigation into Clinton's use of an email server and there's enough in there to give her critics plenty of ammunition to use between now and November—including the way her old devices either disappeared or were smashed, and the fact that she didn't know what the "C" next to classified emails stood for. Some highlights from the report, which can be seen in full
here:
- A laptop used to archive Clinton's emails disappeared after it was put in the mail. A person interviewed by the FBI said he had deleted the emails from the missing laptop but failed to wipe the hard drive, Bloomberg reports.
- Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Monica Hanley told investigators that Clintons old devices would end up in parts "unknown once she transitioned to a new device," Politico notes. But Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, who helped set up the private email server, "did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer." The FBI identified a total of 13 devices that Clinton used to send email and has only been able to find three of them.
- Clinton told the FBI that she wasn't sure what the '(C)' portion markings used to indicate confidential information meant, but thought it had something to do with alphabetization. She said she relied on staff to judge what was classified and "could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address," the New York Times notes.
- The Hill notes that some of Clinton's emails were deleted weeks after the New York Times ran a story on her private server early last year. A person whose name is redacted told investigators "he believed he had an 'oh s--t' moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from PRN server."
- Colin Powell warned Clinton that her emails could become official records if she used her BlackBerry for official business. "Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data," he wrote after she asked him about email use just a day after she became secretary of State.
- A mystery user accessed an account on the Clinton server using the Tor encryption tool favored by users of the dark web, reports PC World. The account's owner, a Bill Clinton aide, told investigators she had never used Tor and didn't even know what it was
The
Guardian reports that Paul Ryan was among the critics who pounced on the findings Friday, saying the documents "demonstrate Hillary Clinton’s reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information and cast doubt on the decision not to prosecute her. Kevin Drum at
Mother Jones sees it differently. He argues that, for reasons including the fact that Clinton communicated only with a select group of 13 people and was not involved in erasing information from the server, the report is "almost a complete exoneration" of Clinton.