Do they all still exist?
The Denver based company that Hillary hired to watch over her server, Platte River Networks, says it is highly likely that a full backup of all of Hillary’s emails was made from her old server before it was wiped clean. This calls into question how truthful Hillary has been with the voters and law enforcement.
You don’t say.
Platte River networks is not a suspect in any crime and is cooperating fully with the FBI. Hillary must hate that.
Yes.
[Monday-morning update]
Just pardon Hillary now:
Not only would a pardon have legal consequences. It would have political ones. It would be a tacit endorsement of Clinton, a message to Biden not to run. Scrutiny of Clinton would fade. A few news outlets might continue to dig around—we at the Washington Free Beacon will never, ever stop—but most reporters, who’d rather not be writing about this scandal anyway, would turn elsewhere.
Obama would look magnanimous. The country would be spared years of Clinton drama it doesn’t want. A pardon would be a final display of Obama’s moral superiority to the woman he defeated long ago—exactly the sort of self-righteous gesture that most appeals to him.
As Elizabeth Price Foley notes, he’s not being serious, of course, but it is fun to tweak this gang of corrupt thieves and liars. As Nixon said, he gave his enemies the weapons they needed to destroy him. So has Hillary. And I suspect, at this point, one of those enemies is Barack Obama.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Former CIA operative: “You or I would be fired and maybe jailed for this.”
It’s almost as though, in these peoples’ minds, the greater the responsibility, the least the accountability.
[Update a while later]
Surprise! The discovery of thousands of emails that the State Department denied the existence of in 2013:
…this has to be either willful incompetence or a conscious effort to obstruct a court order. If they missed a few responsive e-mails, I’d chalk it up to incompetence; if they missed the most responsive e-mails in an avalanche of data, willful incompetence might still be a good explanation. This looks much more like obstruction of justice, and perhaps the judge in this case may be persuaded to haul State Department officials into court to testify under oath about it. The court can start with John Kerry and start working downward.
At least we still have a judicial branch. It doesn’t seem like we have a Justice Department any more.
If she’s not prosecuted for this, a lot of people who have been will have a good equal-protection case for clemency.
[Update a while later]
Who down-domained the information?
As noted, whoever it is should be questioned. Maybe with conditional immunity.
Backups very likely exist for a simple reason: If you were managing an email server for a client as high-profile as Hillary Clinton (well actually any client), would you want to explain to the client that all their data was gone because of a simple hardware failure? No reputable data management company would manage a server without creating off-site backups rotated on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Let’s hope Platt River Networks is a reputable company.
Speaking as a nerdy guy who has a little–a very little–knowledge of IT, I’m going to speculate here. I’m sure other readers have knowledge that surpasses my own, and as such I welcome technical corrections.
Anyway.
One of the processes by which information travels over the Internet is called UUCP–Unix to Unix Copy Protocol. This means basically that data traverses a network, one point to the next, with 100% of the information copied from point to point to point.
Now, 100% of this information may be copied to system logs. Or it may not. It depends on how things were set up on that specific Unix box. And if it’s not logged, it still was almost certainly written to disk at each hop, with the information in multiple places, like the Unix swap partition or partitions, or maybe IMAP or POP3 was set up in such a manner that it wrote a copy to its logs, or not. There are logs on routers too, though how complete and how lengthy they are depends on how they were set up.
So, even if Hillary had said “screw you people, I’m Hillary Clinton, you can’t do this to me” and her home server and the associated USB drives all got accidentally recycled for scrap metal instead of turned over–it might not matter. You send email over the Internet? You just made two dozen copies of it, at least one, maybe more than one, at every hop from Point A to Point B. And the only machine over which you have physical control or any legal authority is almost certainly the one in front of you on your desk. The rest, you can’t touch. There’s no “undo” button. There’s no “go out onto the Internet at every spot that my email went through and erase it” button. Click “send” and you just broadcast it to the world, and if only the intended recipient reads it, it’s because you were lucky.
This, by the way, is why you’re Not Supposed to Send Classified Stuff by Email. Once you look under the hood, so to speak, email is about as private and about as secure as a postcard–if that.
I’ve never heard of a Federal agency issuing subpoenas for a big swath of servers and routers belonging to one or more ISPs to search them for information, but it’s not a stretch, and it’s not a stretch to think such a subpoena and search might be worthwhile.
Any applicability of these concepts to certain legal cases involving one Lois Lerner at the IRS is left as an exercise for the alert reader.
Some holes in your scenario: UUCP hasn’t been a thing in 20+ years, and almost certainly the Hildebeest’s server was hooked up using a VPN (virtual private network), which drastically limits what kind of logging and packet inspection is done on the TCP/IP network. Backups and logs at Platte River Networks is the best bet.
FYI, contrary to popular belief, classified information traverses the Internet all of the time; however, this is done using VPNs and highly robust encryption, all accomplished using specialized, NSA-accredited routers called TACLANEs. It is extremely unlikely that Hillary!’s server was behind a TACLANE though.
I should revise the above slightly to say that there is no real chance that The Hildebeest’s server is or was behind a TACLANE, because the only way you get a TACLANE is as part of a fully accredited secure network setup, and if they had that, we likely wouldn’t be discussing potential classified data spills.
Looking at the Platt River Networks website I don’t see any indication that this company has any specialty in high-secure systems. They seem not much different than the 1000’s of other data management companies that you can find in any metropolitan area across the U.S.
They look to be a professionally run company and likely do implement industry standard practices for data backups and business continuity in the event of hardware failures. It’s very unlikely that servers maintained by them didn’t have backups on a regular basis. Now, whether those backups tapes still exist is another mother.
Obama has to be careful since he needs a Dem as POTUS to protect his legacy, and bouncing Hill would damage the “War on Women” message. If his FBI can draw out the investigation until after the election, and given the IRS investigation I have no doubt that can be done, he can pardon her after she’s won the election.
Even if there is a “backup”, there is no garauntee that it is actually a backup of Hillary’s server. One would have to examine both for irregularities.
Just say it out loud, “I turned over all of my emails but altered some first. You can totally trust this backup though. No, sorry the original is still poof.”
I just don’t think a dummy backup server is something the Clinton’s wouldn’t do.
The problem with a fake backup server is that it becomes harder and harder to pull-off in a convincing way. Any discrepancies between released documents and backup documents would only serve to draw more light to the subject, which is the exact opposite of what Clinton wants. It’s best to hope that all backup tapes were long ago destroyed, recycled or otherwise scrubbed and pray that none are found in a back room under a shelf somewhere.
I honestly don’t think Clinton ever imagined this to be a problem and didn’t take precautions to do anything other than order the scrubbing of the no-longer used email server. It remains to be seen how well the information was really scrubbed and whether the FBI (whom I’ll assume are working in good faith) can recover a full record of Clinton’s email transactions as SoS from the data management company.
“I honestly don’t think Clinton ever imagined this to be a problem and didn’t take precautions to do anything other than order the scrubbing of the no-longer used email server. ”
Could be but I just don’t trust her. Throwing out a fake backup and claiming it is a mirror of her wiped server would be something Clintonesque.
Doesn’t it occur to anyone else around here that Hillary is following in Michael Mann’s footsteps. Hillary=Mann=?=Jerry Sandusky?
Starting in the middle and working each way, Mann did some dodgy work. Some extremists might even call it fraudulent. But in any case other, peer, experts in his field had other conclusions and in order to advance and, maybe, settle disputes Mann’s data, notes, etc were requested. He refused to provide such notes. Given his position many of the relevant notes were (supposed to be) archived to email. Those emails were requested under legal protocols — in Mann’s case FOIA. Mann again refused to provide responses, went farther and deleted his copies of the requested records, and (it is alleged) went farther still and requested his co-workers to delete THEIR OWN copies of records and emails Mann had exchanged with them. Accused of violating the spirit and letter of law and his professional standards, he counter-accused his peers as incompetents in conspiracy.
Okay, now how much of the records-and-email story above has to change if we search-cut-and-replace Hillary for Mann?
Now, working the other way … when Mann’s feet were more closely held to the fire, political allies embedded in the investigation interviewed him, but not his accusers. The investigators pointed to Mann’s stellar reputation, and issued a report of investigation clearing him of all wrong doing.
Again, cut-and-paste replacing Mann with Sandusky and we see the Simberg comparison from a half-decade back. The similarities are there, however it may be argued about how significant these are.
But if the three-way comparison holds, we are now ripe to see an “investigation” into the accusations again Hillary’s handling of documents and emails. We will have a Penn-State like panel ask her questions, and accept her answers. A report will be issued. And, going forward, anyone dares suggest the panel whitewashed, downplayed, or inadequately addressed the real accusations, will be dismissed as a crank — if not dragged into court for libel.
Emails tortured and molested until they tell a different story?
I strongly encourage everyone to read the “who down-domained” link at the end of Rand’s post.
It points out that the SI and above rating stuff had to come from a secure, air-gaped, intelligence community network (whose stations are under intel agency control), and the only way to get info off of it is to burn a CD and walk it over to the internet-connected computers.
Anyone doing so committed a slew of major felonies, and the access was logged. I think the biggest questions here are who did this, and why. The only legal out that person could have might be if the Sec State ordered them to do it, in which case she’s guilty of a slew of major felonies. Serious? Ask Bradley Manning, who’s serving 35 years for violating the same statutes, in the same way.
To be clear, this isn’t a mere case of procedural rules breaking, it’s a case of major felonies regarding the national security of the United States. Hillary Clinton cannot conceivably escape it even if she’s not the one who transferred the SI data; she was the recipient, she was the boss, and she absolutely had have been aware (due to her senate and sec-state security clearances) that it was a felony (plus, ignorance isn’t a defense under these laws).
Yes, do read the article. It backs up what I wrote last week.
CJ, I read the article and in one way it provides a little cover to Hillary, if she chose to do a little more misinformation.
In my company, we encrypt certain emails we don’t want to expose. In order for anyone to read them, you have to compel someone to provide their public key password to decrypt. So if you asked for an electronic copy of all my emails, you could have them, but some of them would not be readable. Since I cannot be forced to divulge my password, I could print a copy of what the email stated, which is where Hillary! can make some hay. Then again, the email is also sent to someone else, and they could be willing to decrypt the email for whomever.
It’s not quite the air gap system, but I do wonder why she didn’t have additional personal encryption of certain emails. That, on top of the VPN, personnel server, etc. If she did have such, then make some political misdirection hay by saying she used such encryption to protect certain emails (don’t say which ones, as that suggests knowledge of classified material access on non-classified systems) and that the printing of emails (bane of the VRWC) was the reasonable solution.
At this point. I think the only thing that can save Hillary is a purely political action by Obama.
” I think the biggest questions here are who did this, and why.”
Last I heard, Sandy Berger had nothing much to do. Which is a flippant way of saying that this sort of thing (illegally moving/removing documents) is old hat with the Clintons.
You really have to wonder……
Hillary saw what happened to Petraeus… Did she really think she was immune?
Did Hillary really think that turning over a wiped server would help her? Did she not understand how that looks?
Just makes you wonder what sort of grip on reality she has.
I don’t think she ever thought that far ahead. She knew what her lackeys at CREW were doing to attempt to obtain Karl Rove’s RNC emails. Really, it was just a legalized version of Nixon’s Watergate break-in, but instead of sending burglars to break into an office, you send a policeman to execute a subpoena for them as part of a lawsuit discovery (see Wisconsin John Doe investigations). She wanted a way to protect herself from the Republicans doing to her what she was having done to them.
Like her surrogate Jim, she never recognized the difference between conducting DNC business and the business of the federal government. Politics is everything with them, hence the politicized IRS, EPA, and DOJ is normal business for them. That’s how political machines work in their world. She doesn’t care about classified rankings, because she is entitled to read them anyway.
It never crossed her mind, until she talked to someone else about the risk she faced after the private server was discovered.
I’ve heard from folks here in Denver that Platte River Networks is connected with the Bighorn Center, which figured into the birth of the Colorado Democracy Alliance aka “The Colorado Model”.
An interesting connection, if true.
Whatever Hillary may have done, knocking her out of the race isn’t necessarily going to bring a better result for the Republic. The Republicans (“The Stupid [Politically] Party” in my book) could end up feeling free to nominate someone with a low enough capability/popularity to lose to someone like Bernie. Or Joe.