“Covering up some shady s–t”

In the adjacent post, Paul considers the news that Madam Hillary reduced her email storage maintained by Platte River in late 2014 and early 2015, after she had turned over printed out paper copies of the emails to The State Department. Her team twice instructed Platte River to reduce the amount of email data stored during each server backup by decreasing the backup time period for email retention. The change reportedly caused the deletion of emails. Paul’s post is based on a McClatchy story by Gregg Gordon and Anita Kumar.

The New York Post has a related story that provides the perfect slogan for this saga:

An employee of the computer company that maintained Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ­email server questioned if he was part of a coverup, according to documents ­released Tuesday.

“This whole thing really is covering up some shady s–t,” the employee said in an Aug. 19 company email obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The concerns by the Colorado-based Platte River Networks employee were aired after the Clinton camp ordered a reduction in the data stored during each server backup.

The limits were ordered after the State Department contacted the former secretary of state in summer 2014 to inquire about her private e-mail records.

In October, the department sent a formal request to turn over documents.

The employee was so suspicious that he sent an ­email to a colleague asking for a copy of the email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. to document “their directive” to limit the number of e-mails stored.

The company email would make a fitting campaign slogan. “Hillary: Covering up some shady s–t.” Her preferred verb and adverb to describe herself — “fighting tirelessly” — also work in this context. “Fighting tirelessly to cover up some shady s–t.” Keeping up the fight roughly since the time the Big Dog was first elected to public office in Arkansas.

The Washington Post also reports on the continuing FBI investigation of no one in particular for nothing at all that derives from Clinton’s email arrangements. Tom Hamburger and Rosalind Helderman’s story is headlined “FBI probe of Clinton email expands to second data company.”

The investigation is expanding like the universe itself. The Clinton presidential campaign expands the uses of Speaker of the House wannabe Kevin McCarthy accordingly:

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, accused Johnson of “ripping a page from the House Benghazi Committee’s playbook and mounting his own, taxpayer-funded sham of an investigation with the sole purpose of attacking Hillary Clinton politically.”

“The Justice Department is already conducting a review concerning the security of her server equipment, and is fully aware of Datto’s role in providing services to Platte River Networks. The Justice Department’s independent review is led by nonpolitical, career professionals, and Ron Johnson has no business interfering with it for his own partisan ends,” he said in a statement.

The Hamburger-Helderman story also provides the exact quote from the internal Platte River email that should inspire the Clinton campaign slogan. “Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shaddy [sic] shit,” the employee wrote.

At the Washington Free Beacon Bill Gertz provides another update on the FBI investigation of no one in particular for nothing at all. Gertz reports that the FBI has seized four State Department servers in the course of its investigation.

The cat had the tongue of the Clinton campaign spokesman on this one. Gertz reports: “A spokesman for the Clinton campaign did not respond to an email request for comment.” But what about Kevin McCarthy?

In virtually every comment on her email arrangement, Clinton asserts that her email arrangement was “permitted” or “authorized.” But who authorized it?

Josh Gerstein takes up the question in the Politico story “Who approved Clinton’s homebrew server?” The question arises in one of the FOIA lawsuits brought by Judicial Watch. A Judicial Watch attorney seeks the testimony of Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to address the issue.

I thought I may have missed the answer to the question somewhere along the line. It is apparently Clinton’s position that State Department rules “permitted” the arrangement, not anyone in particular. Gerstein writes:

Clinton and the State Department have repeatedly declined to respond to press questions about whether the email arrangement was approved by management, record-keeping or security personnel at State. Clinton has said the practice was “permitted” under State Department rules, but she has not publicly detailed whether officials there helped set it up or maintain it.

Come right out and say it, Josh. “Some shady s–t,” indeed.

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