The Missing “Oh Shit” Link Revealed: Hillary Admits “I Asked That They Be Deleted”

Back in September we wrote about the circumstances leading up to the “Oh Shit” moment when Paul Combetta of Platte River Networks deleted Hillary’s 30,000 “personal emails” (the full notes is here: “The “Oh Shit” Moment: Hillary Wiped Her Server With BleachBit Despite Subpoena“). Within the original FBI interview notes, Hillary “stated she never deleted, nor did she instruct anyone to delete, her e-mails to avoid complying with FOIA, State, or FBI requests for information.” Moreover, just last week, in sworn testimony provided to Judicial Watch, Hillary also denied asking for the emails to be deleted. That said, a new email discovered in the latest WikiLeaks dump seems to offer a direct contradiction to what Hillary previously told both the FBI and Judicial Watch.

So which version is true?

–  FBI Notes: “Clinton stated she was also unaware of the March 2015 e-mail deletions by PRN.”

–  Judicial Watch Testimony: “She believes that her personal e-mails were not kept, and she does not have any personal knowledge about the details of that process.”

–  Private Talking Points (WikiLeaks): “As I said in March, I chose not to keep the personal ones.  I asked that they be deleted.”

Before getting into the details, here is the background from the FBI notes on how Hillary’s personal emails came to be deleted.

Shortly after providing the data dump to the State Department, in “December 2014 or January 2015,” both Heather Samuelson and Cheryl Mills requested that all emails be removed from their computers using “a program called BleachBit to delete the e-mail-related files so they could not be recovered.” 

For her part, “Clinton stated she never deleted, nor did she instruct anyone to delete, her e-mails to avoid complying with FOIA, State or FBI requests for information” though the following notes suggest she did agree to change her email retention policy to 60 days.

A few months later, on March 4, 2015, Hillary received a subpoena from the House for all of her emails on all of her personal servers.

Which brings us to the “Oh Shit” moment which occurred on March 25, 2015. On that fateful day, Paul Combetta realized that he had forgotten to change Hillary’s email retention policy to 60 days. But, the existence of the Congressional subpoena now meant that those emails needed to be preserved. Despite acknowledging the subpoena, after a call with Hillary’s attorney, David Kendall, and Cheryl Mills, Combetta proceeded to delete the emails anyway.

Ironically, both Mills and Clinton subsequently denied any knowledge that the “personal emails” were deleted.

“Mills stated she was unaware that [Redacted] had conducted these deletions and modifications in March 2015.  Clinton stated she was also unaware of the March 2015 e-mail deletions by PRN.”

Which leads us to our final question…if, as reported to the FBI, Hillary was unaware that her “personal emails” were deleted in March 2015 then why, in internal talking points that never surfaced publicly before today, did Clinton admit that “As I said in March, I chose not to keep the personal ones. I asked that they be deleted.”

Apparently, Hillary has both a public and private position on exactly what happened in March 2015…we’ll let you decide which is more reflective of the truth.

Finally, we’ll leave you with one more Hillary variation of an “answer” to the exact same question. The following response was offered to Judicial Watch as part of a FOIA lawsuit and the answer was specifically provided under oath.

Question: After your lawyers completed their review of the emails in your clintonemail.com email account in late 2014, were the electronic versions of your emails preserved, deleted, or destroyed? If they were deleted or destroyed, what tool or software was used to delete or destroy them, who deleted or destroyed them, and was the deletion or destruction done at your direction?

Response: Secretary Clinton objects to Interrogatory No. 23 as outside the scope of permitted discovery for the reason set forth in General Objection No. 3. Secretary Clinton further objects to Interrogatory No. 23 on the ground that it requests information that is outside the scope of permitted discovery for the reason set forth in General Objection No. 5. Secretary Clinton further objects to Interrogatory No. 23 insofar as it requests information about all e-mail in her clintonemail.com account, including personal e-mail. Subject to and without waiving the foregoing objections, Secretary Clinton states that it was her expectation that all of her work-related and potentially work-related e-mail then in her custody would be provided to the State Department in response to its request. Secretary Clinton believes that her attorneys retained copies of the e-mails provided to the State Department in December 2014, but she does not have any personal knowledge about the details of that process. Secretary Clinton decided that, once her work-related and potentially work-related e-mails were provided to the State Department, she had no reason to keep her personal e-mails, which did not relate to official State Department business. She believes that her personal e-mails were not kept, and she does not have any personal knowledge about the details of that process.

So, we ask again, which version is true?

–  FBI Notes: “Clinton stated she was also unaware of the March 2015 e-mail deletions by PRN.”

–  Judicial Watch Testimony: “She believes that her personal e-mails were not kept, and she does not have any personal knowledge about the details of that process.”

–  Private Talking Points (WikiLeaks): “As I said in March, I chose not to keep the personal ones.  I asked that they be deleted.”