Hillary Used High Tech Scrubber, BleachBit, To Delete Emails

[bhsmte]

The lack of just basic curiosity on behalf of the MSM and the Democratic electorate as to the reasons why HRC had this private server in the first place is appalling. Comey laid out the basic case of how Clinton was grossly careless about her use of such a server, and how she was dishonest in every explanation she had given to that point in time, and then, for whatever reasons, left the final decision to the American electorate rather than to the criminal courts.
Democrats have been fed a BS sandwich by HRC and they know it. It is truly amazing to watch them bite right into and aver that it is honey.

I would agree with this take.

Clinton has lied repeatedly about the specifics. Her excuse to use her own server in the first place, is also quite lame, for someone who is the secretary of state and you would hope would be in tune with the nature of the information she was handling.

 

[PapaZoom]

The lack of just basic curiosity on behalf of the MSM and the Democratic electorate as to the reasons why HRC had this private server in the first place is appalling. Comey laid out the basic case of how Clinton was grossly careless about her use of such a server, and how she was dishonest in every explanation she had given to that point in time, and then, for whatever reasons, left the final decision to the American electorate rather than to the criminal courts.
Democrats have been fed a BS sandwich by HRC and they know it. It is truly amazing to watch them bite right into and aver that it is honey.

It's amazing to me the size of the blinders one needs to avoid seeing what's right there in front of us. And yet many just don't care and others go out of their way to excuse it all away.

 

[Hank77]

Did you have to have a FBI clearance. Did you have top secret Emails? Although Obama is so good at collecting his tax money I doubt if anything gets past him.

Clinton's deleted emails could have been emails about her own families issues, such as wedding plans and what things would cost for that, who knows? I don't at this point in time, do you?

Someone mentioned destroying the hard drive when getting rid of an old computer, which I do as well. But I really hadn't thought about private emails being kept separate from anything that the government may want access to. It's that simple.

 

[tall73]

Clinton's deleted emails could have been emails about her own families issues, such as wedding plans and what things would cost for that, who knows? I don't at this point in time, do you?

The FBI recovered work related emails from slack space in one of the servers, and from other people's accounts that were not in what she turned over. That means she did not turn over all the work ones.

Comey also referenced that their search for private email was done only by subjects and key words, not by reviewing the content.

Someone mentioned destroying the hard drive when getting rid of an old computer, which I do as well. But I really hadn't thought about private emails being kept separate from anything that the government may want access to. It's that simple.

What is simple is that she is required to keep any work product under the records act. They already demonstrated she did not do that, as they found a number of emails not turned over.

 

[Hank77]

The FBI recovered work related emails from slack space in one of the servers, and from other people's accounts that were not in what she turned over. That means she did not turn over all the work ones.

Comey also referenced that their search for private email was done only by subjects and key words, not by reviewing the content.



What is simple is that she is required to keep any work product under the records act. They already demonstrated she did not do that, as they found a number of emails not turned over.

One more time.
ALL I was saying was that her using the same email server for ALL her emails, personal and business Caused me to think about what I had done with MY personal emails and business emails.
THAT is what I meant by being that simple. Sheesh....I think some of you just want to argue so much that you cannot refocus even for one tiny short statement that was NOT really referring to what SHE did.
You are wasting your time over nothing.

 

[bhsmte]

Clinton's deleted emails could have been emails about her own families issues, such as wedding plans and what things would cost for that, who knows? I don't at this point in time, do you?

Someone mentioned destroying the hard drive when getting rid of an old computer, which I do as well. But I really hadn't thought about private emails being kept separate from anything that the government may want access to. It's that simple.

Correct.

The thing is, we may never know which emails Hilary had deleted.

 

[MrSpikey]

Comey indicated multiple people within the government she corresponded with were hacked, and at least one outside the government who sent classified information (Blumenthal) was known to be hacked. So some classified information was transmitted to bad actors no matter how you look at it because they all were corresponding outside the classified system.

From his 5 July press release:

"We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account...Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account."

This is her actual personal account, rather than a dedicated work account, as indicated when he says it was only sometimes used for "sending and receiving work-related e-mails". There is no indication of classified material being sent in relation to her personal account, as opposed to personal domain or server which can host multiple accounts.

I couldn't see any reference to Blumenthal in there, what is your source for that?

 

[MrSpikey]

"To date, we have known only that the Romanian hacker, Guccifer, breached Clinton advisor, Sidney Blumenthal’s account. Comey, however, states that hostile actors (plural) gained access to the accounts (plural) of Clinton’s regular contacts. So the FBI has evidence of more than one successful hack of accounts of Clinton associates. In this light, Comey’s statement that a hack of Clinton’s account was “possible” is a gross and peculiar understatement."

https://ricochet.com/comey-hostile-foreign-actors-plural-hack-hillarys-associates/

If Hillary wasn't hacked, she's very very lucky. We may never know for sure. Or we'll find out in October.

If you actually follow the link, you'd see the actual quote was "We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account" - so, a guess rather than a statement of fact.

The Blumenthal link was written by someone who isn't a Forbes staff member, just an independent contributor:

"We have no information about the authenticity of the hacked e mails. They will be tested over the next few hours or days." [The article is dated March 2013 and hasn't been updated since, despite an actual Forbes editor saying that it would be]

"The reader should be warned that these are first and partial accounts of hacked emails that may be fabricated by someone with a hidden agenda. "

Hardly conclusive, is it?

 

[PapaZoom]

If you actually follow the link, you'd see the actual quote was "We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account" - so, a guess rather than a statement of fact.

The Blumenthal link was written by someone who isn't a Forbes staff member, just an independent contributor:

"We have no information about the authenticity of the hacked e mails. They will be tested over the next few hours or days." [The article is dated March 2013 and hasn't been updated since, despite an actual Forbes editor saying that it would be]

"The reader should be warned that these are first and partial accounts of hacked emails that may be fabricated by someone with a hidden agenda. "

Hardly conclusive, is it?

I didn't claim it was conclusive. But it's more likely than not given all the circumstances surrounding Hillary's sloppy emailing practices. It's clear that Hillary was both careless and that she lied about it over and over. That would make a liberal's hair fall out if a Conservative did the same thing. But it's no big deal because it's hillary. meh

 

[MrSpikey]

I didn't claim it was conclusive.

The source you quoted did.

"Comey states that: “Hostile actors gained access"

"To date, we have known only that the Romanian hacker, Guccifer"

"Comey, however, states that hostile actors (plural) gained access"

"So the FBI has evidence of more than one "

If you didn't agree with it, why quote it?

It's clear that Hillary was both careless

Agreed

and that she lied about it over and over.

Those charged with investigating it didn't agree. Your own opinion may differ, but that doesn't make it "clear".

That would make a liberal's hair fall out if a Conservative did the same thing. But it's no big deal because it's hillary. meh

I am far from being a support of Clinton. But it's been investigated, concluding in a decision it was not criminal behaviour and she did not deliberately mislead. Efforts to misrepresent that decision are mudslinging in it's most basic form, whoever you support.

 

[tall73]

One more time.
ALL I was saying was that her using the same email server for ALL her emails, personal and business Caused me to think about what I had done with MY personal emails and business emails.
THAT is what I meant by being that simple. Sheesh....I think some of you just want to argue so much that you cannot refocus even for one tiny short statement that was NOT really referring to what SHE did.
You are wasting your time over nothing.

But you did say more than that, and you did refer to her actions:

Clinton's deleted emails could have been emails about her own families issues, such as wedding plans and what things would cost for that, who knows? I don't at this point in time, do you?

So I pointed out that they have recovered work emails that she did not turn over as part of her work product.

I am not wasting my time by addressing the part you referenced about Clinton. And as to your personal behavior, that is up to you. But I was pointing out that Clinton's behavior is defined by her work requirements, and those were very clear. She was to retain all work emails and did not.

 

[MrSpikey]

So I pointed out that they have recovered work emails that she did not turn over as part of her work product.

Comey said:

"I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed."

She didn't turn them over as they had been routinely deleted.

 

[tall73]

I couldn't see any reference to Blumenthal in there, what is your source for that?

Blumenthal turned over his copies to the committee, and they included some that Clinton did not turn over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/u...y-clintons-encouragement-of-adviser.html?_r=1

There were already some notions that she didn't turn over all of them because a screenshot from Guccifer of Blumenthal's inbox showed to subjects that were not in the documents she presented.

 

[tall73]

Comey said:

"I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed."

She didn't turn them over as they had been routinely deleted.

He admitted during the hearings that clarified his statement that they did not look at FOIA issues, etc. She is required to preserve those documents, and take measures to prevent their destruction if she is aware of it. The IG report confirms they are considered records under the Records Act, and notes reminders regarding email preservation.

But of course, Comey also said:

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

So while taking some of the servers offline they may have deleted information inadvertently from the server they were taking offline, it is not clear that they didn't first migrate them. And he thinks it likely that some that were deleted by the lawyers were ones later found by them in other people's inboxes, or in slack space.

Either way, she was supposed to keep her records and did not.

 

[MrSpikey]

He admitted during the hearings that clarified his statement that they did not look at FOIA issues, etc. She is required to preserve those documents, and take measures to prevent their destruction if she is aware of it. The IG report confirms they are considered records under the Records Act, and notes reminders regarding email preservation.

But of course, Comey also said:

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

So while taking some of the servers offline they may have deleted information inadvertently from the server they were taking offline, it is not clear that they didn't first migrate them. And he thinks it likely that some that were deleted by the lawyers were ones later found by them in other people's inboxes, or in slack space.

Either way, she was supposed to keep her records and did not.

The routine deletion of emails is implied across the lifespan of her email server adventure, and he didn't give any credence to this being deliberate - obviously, any deletions prior to instructions to preserve cannot be deemed suspicious.

I can't say I'm surprised that a term based search approach to identifying emails was "highly likely" to have missed some. Can you honestly say you think that is suspicious? I struggle to find archived items in my own email using keyword searches.

 

[tall73]

From his 5 July press release:

"We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account...Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account."

This is her actual personal account, rather than a dedicated work account, as indicated when he says it was only sometimes used for "sending and receiving work-related e-mails". There is no indication of classified material being sent in relation to her personal account, as opposed to personal domain or server which can host multiple accounts.

The problem is he references no work account. He referred to her personal account AND her personal domain, personal e-mail system, etc. throughout because that is what she actually used, was her personal account, system, domain, etc., not a government work account. Yes, a server may have multiple accounts. It may have multiple domains. And of course her server hosted some of her co-workers etc. so it did have multiple accounts. But it is up to you to demonstrate this work account vs. personal account. And of course, if she had two different accounts she wouldn't have to have her lawyers do key word searches and subject searches would she? She would just have them delete the personal account, or at the least only go through the personal one to see if a few work items got mixed in. It was this blending of personal and work emails that was the basis of her decision to delete some in the first place, because they were all being sent from the same account.


Now let's look at the key paragraph in question:

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

In the context of the report it is clear that this is still talking about the personal domain, tied to her personal account, that was readily identifiable because it contained the word clinton in it. This email was used across various servers, and she used this for all of her correspondence. The statement about "also used her personal email" was in connection with using it out of the United States, which makes it even more dangerous as it is going through foreign towers. But it is still the same system being referenced.

Here are the additional references to personal email system, domain, etc. But the point is that it was all done on a personal email system, as that was what they were to investigate in the first place.

The whole statement is even titled:


Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System



Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.

The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.

Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal e-mail server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors.

Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain.

As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal e-mail was used for government work—has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.

For example, when one of Secretary Clinton’s original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the e-mail software was removed

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014.

And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton’s personal server, to staff members with whom she corresponded on e-mail, to those involved in the e-mail production to State, and finally, Secretary Clinton herself.

Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the personal e-mail operation.

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

 

[tall73]

If you actually follow the link, you'd see the actual quote was "We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account" - so, a guess rather than a statement of fact.

The Blumenthal link was written by someone who isn't a Forbes staff member, just an independent contributor:

"We have no information about the authenticity of the hacked e mails. They will be tested over the next few hours or days." [The article is dated March 2013 and hasn't been updated since, despite an actual Forbes editor saying that it would be]

"The reader should be warned that these are first and partial accounts of hacked emails that may be fabricated by someone with a hidden agenda. "

Hardly conclusive, is it?

But then Blumenthal turned over his emails to the committee, and they included additional ones she did not preserve, as my NY Times source pointed out.

 

[MrSpikey]

The problem is he references no work account

<snip>

As I mentioned originally, he does talk about personal domains, servers and accounts. The distinctions between these things isn't something that people will necessarily understand unless they have some background there.

The paragraph I pointed out is the only one where he uses personal email account rather than the other two; his statement that "She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails" seems pretty clear in distinguishing a personal email account (from which she sent some work emails) from a work one, dedicated to the subject.

I'd agree it could be clearer and I'm prepared to recognize the ambiguities in the statement. How about you?

 

[tall73]

I am far from being a support of Clinton. But it's been investigated, concluding in a decision it was not criminal behaviour and she did not deliberately mislead. Efforts to misrepresent that decision are mudslinging in it's most basic form, whoever you support.

Except that Comey testified about his findings and said it did not include any investigation into FOIA violations, and did not include any investigation in perjury from her earlier congressional hearings. So no, that part was not all investigated. And it is plain as day that she did not preserve all the documents she was supposed to. The IG report notes her email production was incomplete, and so does Comey's statement.

 

[tall73]

The routine deletion of emails is implied across the lifespan of her email server adventure, and he didn't give any credence to this being deliberate - obviously, any deletions prior to instructions to preserve cannot be deemed suspicious.

Of course they can. She is charged with preserving all records under the Federal Records Act. Now Comey does not allege that these necessarily vanished at that time. Rather he things some that were deleted by the lawyers later were work related, and therefore necessary to be preserved.

I can't say I'm surprised that a term based search approach to identifying emails was "highly likely" to have missed some. Can you honestly say you think that is suspicious? I struggle to find archived items in my own email using keyword searches.

I think it is suspicious that she has been ordered to turn everything over and started having folks delete them, yes.

I also think it doesn't matter if it is suspicious. She is supposed to keep ALL of her records as part of the Records Act, for FOIA requests. Comey specifically said in the testimony that they did not examine FOIA violations. In other words, she skates on that. And not just her.

The sad part is many were not keeping their records, per the IG report. Now I have worked in a regulated private industry before. And if a company demonstrates blatant disregard for laws they are treated MORE harshly than if a few things just slip through the cracks. But here a whole department of the US government has almost no preservation of records, and because so many did it we are to believe it is OK? It is even worse that the Secretary, who is charged with preserving records, not only did not preserve her own, but didn't make sure everyone else did as well.

And Powell also did not turn in most of his emails, per the IG report. He should also be pursued on this basis. While some rules regarding using personal accounts etc. were later firmed up, the Records Act was already in place during those earlier tenures, and all of them disregarded it. If they really want us to think that they are serious about reforms, then pursue those who blatantly failed to do what they were charged with doing, in violation of Federal law.