Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The developing server story distracts from the basic fact that Hillary's Chappaqua server needs to be examined by the FBI

The many moving elements of this story can and do mislead and distract from the basic fact that Hillary late in 2014 set the server which currently sits in the Bill and Hillary Clinton Chappaqua home to save no e-mails older than 60 days. It was from this server that Hillary produced the record of e-mails she says she provided to the State Department. Older servers may or may not retain evidence of those e-mails.

The FBI needs to examine the Clinton's Chappaqua server, to which Hillary's emails were last transferred after June 2013 with the help of the Denver firm Platte River. Hillary has implied she provided e-mails to State from this server in December 2014 and then deleted everything, including her personal e-mails. Her lawyer has stated that the method employed to delete everything was to set the server not to save e-mails older than 60 days. The lawyer's letter to Congress says nothing about wiping the server. Sometime late in 2014 after copying out her State Department e-mails and providing them to State Hillary Clinton stopped saving e-mails on this server according to her testimony.

The Denver firm Platte River reportedly started work for Hillary in June 2013, removing the old server from the New York home to New Jersey after transferring everything to the new, present server. So this means the Denver "bathroom servers" we all went crazy over in recent days are irrelevant because those long pre-dated Hillary and had nothing to do with this story. The only relevant server Platte River had was the server removed in 2013 to New Jersey and now in the possession of the FBI. 

The New York Post reported here on August 13th:

"Platte River says it began work for Clinton in June 2013, after she left office, to upgrade, secure and manage her e-mail server. The company retrieved the server from her New York home and housed it at a data center in New Jersey, said company spokesman Andy Boian."

The Washington Post had reported here on August 12th:

'Before it was taken to the data center in New Jersey, the server had been in the basement of the Clintons’ private home in Chappaqua, N.Y., during the time she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the Clintons’ e-mail network.

'After she left government service in early 2013, the Clintons decided to upgrade the system, hiring Platte River as the new manager of a privately managed e-mail network. The old server was removed from the Clinton home by Platte River and stored in a third party data center, which are set up to provide security from threats of hacking and natural disaster, Wells [representing Platte River] said.

'Platte River Networks has retained control of the old server since it took over management of the Clintons’ e-mail system. She said that the old server “was blank,” and no longer contained useful data. ...

'The Clinton’s private e-mail system passed through different hands. In 2008, responsibility for the system was held by Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton who served as a special assistant helping the former president with his books. ...

'Those briefed on the server setup say the device installed for Bill Clinton was deemed too small for the addition of a sitting Cabinet official [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton]. Instead, a server that had been purchased for use by Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign was installed at the Chappaqua home.

'With the new server came an additional specialist who had worked as her campaign’s Internet technology director and later went to the State Department as an IT specialist.'

It's that 2008 server which ended up in New Jersey in 2013 when Platte River Networks entered the picture and helped Hillary transition to the post-Benghazi environment (9/11/2012).  Remember, it was early in 2013 immediately after she left the State Department that Hillary all of a sudden decided to upgrade the system hide the evidence.

Hillary needs to answer why a server upgraded to be suitable for a sitting US Secretary of State had to be replaced for a retired one. As surely as the sun also rises, the new 2013 server has not been wiped and must be investigated before it is.

The pea is under shell three.