GONE, GIRL FBI : laptop filled with Hillary Clinton’s emails is missing

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Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/ The Daily Beast

GONE, GIRL
Hillary Clinton's Team Lost a Laptop Full of Her Emails in the Actual Mail
A laptop filled with Hillary Clinton's emails is missing, the FBI just revealed. It makes the stink around Hillary's private account even worse.
by SHANE HARRIS 09.02.16 11:55 PM ET
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/02/hillary-clinton-s-team-lost-a-laptop-full-of-her-emails-in-the-actual-mail.html

  "A laptop containing a copy, or "archive," of the emails on Hillary
   Clinton's private server was apparently lost—in the postal
   mail—according to an FBI report released Friday. Along with it, a thumb
   drive that also contained an archive of Clinton's emails has been lost
   and is not in the FBI's possession.
   
   The Donald Trump campaign has already called for Clinton to be "locked
   up" for her carelessness handling sensitive information. The missing
   laptop and thumb drive raise a new possibility that Clinton's emails
   could have been obtained by people for whom they weren't intended. The
   FBI director has already said it's possible Clinton's email system
   could have been remotely accessed by foreign hackers.
   
   The revelation of the two archives is contained in a detailed report
   about the FBI's investigation of Clinton's private email account. The
   report contained new information about how the archives were handled,
   as well as how a private company deleted emails in its possession, at
   the same time that congressional investigators were demanding copies.
   
   The archives on the laptop and thumbdrive were constructed by Clinton
   aides in 2013, using a convoluted process, before her emails were
   turned over to State Department officials and later scrubbed to
   determine which ones had classified information and should either be
   withheld from public view or could be released with redactions. The
   archive of messages would contain none of those safeguards, potentially
   exposing classified information if it were ever opened and its contents
   read.
   
   The FBI has found that Clinton's emails contained classified
   information, including information derived from U.S. intelligence. Her
   campaign has disputed the classification of some of the emails.
   
   The archive was created nearly a year before the State Department
   contacted former secretaries of state and asked them to turn over any
   emails that they had sent using private accounts that pertained to
   official business. A senior Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, told the FBI
   that the archive on the laptop and thumb drive were meant to be "a
   reference for the future production of a book," according to the FBI
   report. Another aide, however, said that the archive was set up after
   the email account of a Clinton confidante and longtime adviser, Sidney
   Blumenthal, was compromised by a Romanian hacker.
   
   Whatever the rationale, the transfer of Clinton's emails onto two new
   storage devices, one of which was shipped twice, created new
   opportunities for messages to be lost or exposed to people who weren't
   authorized to see them, according to the FBI report. (The Clinton
   campaign didn't immediately respond to a request to comment for this
   story.)
   
   The FBI found that in the spring of 2013, just after Clinton left the
   Obama administration, aides for Hillary and Bill Clinton worked
   together to create the archive.
   
   Justin Cooper, who handled technology matters for the former president,
   provided Hillary Clinton aide Monica Hanley with an Apple MacBook
   laptop from the Clinton Foundation. Over the phone, Cooper "walked
   Hanley through the process of remotely transferring Clinton's emails"
   from the server she'd been using as secretary of state, located in her
   home in New York, to the new "Archive Laptop," as the FBI called it, as
   well as to the thumb drive.
   
   "Hanley completed this task from her personal residence," the FBI found.
   
   The two copies of the Clinton email archive were supposed to be stored
   in Clinton's homes, in New York and Washington, D.C. But, Hanley later
   told the FBI, that never happened, because she "forgot to provide the
   Archive Laptop and the thumb drive to Clinton's staff following the
   creation of the archive."
   
   According to the FBI, months later, in early 2014, Hanley found the
   "Archive Laptop" at her personal residence and worked with another
   person to transfer the the emails to a technology company, Platte River
   Networks, which the Clintons had hired to manage the email system. (The
   name of the person helping Hanley is redacted in the FBI report, but
   appears to be an employee of Platte River Networks.)
   
   After trying unsuccessfully to remotely transfer the emails to a Platte
   River server, Hanley shipped the laptop to the employee's home in
   February 2014. He then "migrated Clinton's emails" from the laptop to a
   Platte River server.
   
   That task was hardly straightforward, however, and ended up exposing
   the email archive yet again, this time to another commercial email
   service.
   
   The employee "transferred all of the Clinton e-mail content to a
   personal Google e-mail (Gmail) address he created," the FBI found. From
   that Gmail address, he downloaded the emails into a mailbox named "HRC
   Archive" on the Platte River server.
   
   Hanley told the FBI that she recommended Platte River "wipe the Archive
   Laptop" after the emails were transferred onto the company's server.
   But the employee told investigators that while he deleted the emails
   from the laptop, he did not "wipe" it.
   
   Emails deleted from an application might not be permanently erased. In
   fact, the FBI found nearly 15,000 emails that Clinton never turned over
   to the State Department, some of which had been deleted over time and
   were never found by Clinton's lawyers. They ended up, among other
   places, in the "slack space" of servers Clinton had used, according to
   FBI Director James Comey.
   
   The Platte River employee told the FBI that he deleted the emails from
   the Gmail account, but that turned out not to be entirely true.
   Investigators later found 940 emails sent or received in 2010 that, as
   of this past June, were still in the account. The FBI found that 56 of
   them have been identified as being currently classified at the
   "confidential" level.
   
   After the employee deleted emails from the "Archive Laptop," he shipped
   it by U.S. mail or UPS (he apparently couldn't remember) to an
   unidentified Clinton aide at an office location. (The precise address
   is redacted.)
   
   But that aide never received the laptop. She told the FBI that
   "Clinton's staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been
   easy for the package to get lost during the transition period."
   
   The thumb drive containing the second copy of the archive also was
   never found.
   
   "Neither Hanley nor [the Platte River employee] could identify the
   current whereabouts of the Archive Laptop or the thumb drive containing
   the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession,"
   the FBI report stated.
   
   The FBI's inspection of the Gmail account used to shuttle Clinton's
   emails also turned up other concerns. Of the 940 emails still in the
   account, 302 "were not found in the set of e-mails" that Clinton
   eventually turned over to the State Department in December 2014,
   following the request that former secretaries produce their emails.
   Those may be some of the 15,000 emails that the FBI later discovered.
   
   The FBI also found other instances in which Clinton emails were
   intentionally deleted. In or around December 2014 or January 2015, two
   of Clinton's lawyers—Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—decided they
   wanted to remove copies of Clinton's emails on their own laptops. The
   copies has been placed there months earlier during a remote transfer
   from Platte River.
   
   The FBI found that an unidentified individual (who again appears to be
   the Platte River employee) used a program called BleachBit "to delete
   e-mail related files so they could not be recovered." The employee also
   told the FBI that an "unknown Clinton staff member" directed him to
   remove a backup file of the emails on the Platte River server. It's not
   clear from the FBI report who that Clinton staffer was and why he, or
   she, decided to remove the backup, known as a .pst file, from the
   company's server.
   
   But after Clinton turned over copies of her email to the State
   Department, at the end of 2014, Mills decided to implement a new policy
   for keeping emails in the future.
   
   According to Mills, who had also been Clinton's chief of staff at the
   State Department, in December 2014, "Clinton decided she no longer
   needed access to any of her e-mails older than 60 days," the FBI found.
   "Therefore, Mills instructed [the Platte River empoyee] to modify the
   e-mail retention policy on Clinton's clintonemail.com e-mail account to
   reflect this change."
   
   But the Platte River employee didn't make that change until the
   following March. Near the end of the month, in an "'oh shit' moment,"
   he told the FBI, he realized he'd forgotten to put the 60-day policy
   into effect. He then deleted the Clinton archive from the Platte River
   server and used BleachBit to delete any .pst file he had created
   containing Clinton's emails. The FBI also found evidence that an
   alternate cloud backup had been manually deleted during the same
   timeframe.
   
   This was not the best time to be erasing copies of Clinton's emails.
   Earlier that month, The New York Times had first revealed that Clinton
   used a private server, and her email practices became a controversy
   that has dogged her campaign ever since. At the time, Clinton sought to
   downplay the issue, telling reporters in remarks at the United Nations,
   "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. So I'm
   certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not
   send classified material."
   
   But Clinton was under intense pressure to produce copies of her emails
   and prove she had never sent or received classified information; a
   claim that she frequently repeated but was later eviscerated by the
   FBI's investigation.
   
   But lawmakers were also curious about Clinton's email system. The day
   after the Times story ran, the House committee investigating the 2010
   terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, asked Clinton's lawyers to
   produce all emails related to her private accounts. And a week later,
   on March 9, Mills sent an email to the Platte River employee
   referencing that request.
   
   The FBI appears to have investigated the question of whether the
   employee was directed to delete emails after the committee asked for
   them. Investigators discovered a "work ticket, which referenced a
   conference call on March 31, 2015, with Platte River, Mills, and David
   Kendall, Clinton's longtime attorney who oversaw the process of
   separating her work emails from personal messages. It was Kendall's
   firm, Williams & Connolly, that the Benghazi committee contacted when
   it wanted those official emails.
   
   Platte River's attorney advised the employee "not to comment on the
   conversation with Kendal based upon the assertion of the
   attorney-client privilege," the FBI found.
   
   Mills told the FBI "she was unaware that [the employee] had conducted
   these deletions and modifications in March 2015." Clinton stated "she
   was also unaware" of the deletions.
   
   But what exactly was discussed in that conference call, the FBI never
   found out."

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Hillary Clinton Admits She Has Brain Damage & Unfit To Serve
by The Alex Jones Channel , Published on Sep 2, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMGrDlfzv7E
  "Alex Jones breaks down the latest FBI revelations that include Hillary
   Clinton admitting that she can not remember events associated with her
   fall which led to a concussion back in 2012"

[Christopher Marlowe]

The FBI appears to have investigated the question of whether the
   employee was directed to delete emails after the committee asked for
   them. Investigators discovered a "work ticket, which referenced a
   conference call on March 31, 2015, with Platte River, Mills, and David
   Kendall, Clinton's longtime attorney who oversaw the process of
   separating her work emails from personal messages. It was Kendall's
   firm, Williams & Connolly, that the Benghazi committee contacted when
   it wanted those official emails.
   
   Platte River's attorney advised the employee "not to comment on the
   conversation with Kendal based upon the assertion of the
   attorney-client privilege," the FBI found.

Attorney client privilege does not protect a lawyer who uses that privilege to conduct criminal activity.

The Crime-Fraud Exception to the Attorney-Client Privilege
Not all attorney-client communications are privileged.

by Joseph Broadbent

The attorney-client privilege protects most communications between clients and their lawyers. But, according to the crime-fraud exception to the privilege, a client's communication to her attorney isn't privileged if she made it with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud.

Because the attorney-client privilege belongs to the client, the client's intent determines whether the exception applies. Most courts will apply the exception even if the attorney had no knowledge of, and didn't participate in, the actual crime or fraud.

The crime-fraud exception applies if:

    the client was in the process of committing or intended to commit a crime or fraudulent act, and
    the client communicated with the lawyer with intent to further the crime or fraud, or to cover it up.

Not Just Crime

In some states, the crime-fraud exception isn't limited to crimes and fraud; it also applies where the client's object is a civil tort. For example, the exception could apply if a landlord sought advice about unlawfully evicting a tenant.

Note that many torts are also crimes—assault and trespassing are but two examples. So, even in a state where the client's objective must be criminal in order for the crime-fraud exception to apply, something that also happens to be a tort may trigger it.
Crimes and Frauds

Whether the crime-fraud exception applies depends on the content and context of the communication. The exception covers communications about a variety of crimes and frauds, including (to name just a few):

    "suborning perjury" (asking an attorney to present testimony she knows is false)
    destroying or concealing evidence
    witness tampering, and
    concealing income or assets.

Example: Walt meets with criminal defense attorney Saul for legal advice and asks about the penalties for cooking and selling meth. Saul explains the penalties, and also explains that profits from illegal drug sales can lead to money laundering charges. The conversation is privileged because Walt merely sought advice about penalties. But the result would be different if Walt asked Saul for advice on hiding or destroying evidence, or how to launder his profits by funneling them through a legitimate business.

Example: A securities broker who asks her attorney which documents she should shred to avoid being charged with securities violations is asking the attorney to help her commit a criminal fraud. The prosecution, assuming it suspects or has any indication this conversation took place, could call the lawyer to testify about it. If the judge agreed, the lawyer wouldn't be able to use the attorney-client privilege as a basis to refuse to answer questions about the broker's document-shredding consultation.
Past, Present, or Future

Perhaps the most important consideration about the crime-fraud exception is whether the communication at hand relates to a past wrong, or a present or future one. Communications about past crimes and frauds are almost always privileged, but communications about ongoing or future ones usually aren't.

Note, however, that many courts distinguish present from future intent, and are more likely to apply the exception where the intent is current. The exception ordinarily doesn't apply if the client is merely seeking advice about the consequences of some possible future action. Not surprisingly, the line between present intent and possible future intent can be hazy. Ultimately, it may be up to a court to decide whether the client was about to commit a crime, or was merely asking about the consequences of some future action he might or might not take.
Mandatory Disclosure

If the crime-fraud exception applies, the prosecution can subpoena the attorney and force him to disclose the contents of the communication in question. But, apart from the crime-fraud exception, some situations ethically require lawyers to disclose communications. If lawyers don't, they risk disciplinary sanctions, and possibly criminal charges. Examples include the following.

    Perjury. If the attorney knows a witness is about to give, or has given, perjured testimony, she must inform the court. (Importantly, though, this obligation may not apply if the perjuring witness is the client. See I told my lawyer I'm planning on telling a lie on the stand. What will happen?)
    Crucial evidence. If the client gives the attorney a crucial piece of evidence, the attorney may have to turn it over. (For more detail on this issue, see If I give something to my lawyer, can I expect him to keep it away from the police?)
    Missing person. If the client tells the attorney the location of a missing witness or victim whose life is in imminent danger, the attorney may have to disclose it.
    Threats. If the client threatens to harm someone—for instance, a witness, attorney or judge—the lawyer may have to report the threat.

Most states allow—or require—attorneys to disclose information learned from a client that will prevent death or serious injury. Many have a similar rule where revealing otherwise confidential information would prevent or remedy financial injury due to a crime or fraud.

(For related reading, see If I tell my psychologist about a crime I committed can I get in trouble?)

State ethics rules specify which communications lawyers must disclose, and they may vary somewhat. But these rules tend to have procedures intended to minimize the amount of information the lawyer discloses. The idea is to allow the reporting of critical information while minimizing the extent to which the lawyer implicates the client.
State Variations and Expert Help

Although there are many similarities in the attorney-client privilege from state to state, and in state and federal court, there are variations. Evidence rules, statutes, and court decisions shape the privilege, and determine when the crime-fraud exception applies. Although every state recognizes the crime-fraud exception, when and how it operates may vary somewhat.

While there are some rules of thumb, whether the exception applies almost always turns on the particular facts of each case. Clients and potential clients should rely on advice from a lawyer about which communications will be privileged.

It seems like there is enough evidence here to suspect that counsel was given to destroy evidence, which means that questions should be allowed because such behavior would not be protected.