The Hidden Smoking Gun: the Combetta Cover-Up

By Paul Thompson, with illustrative work by Katie Weddington

written by Paul Thompson, with illustrative work by Katie Weddington

Since April 2016, I’ve worked with a team of people to put together the most detailed timeline on the Clinton email controversy. With this in-depth knowledge of the issue, one recently revealed event stands out as the most important “smoking gun” so far that isn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves: the deletion and wiping of Clinton’s emails in March 2015. This essay draws on the timeline to put together what is publicly known, revealing aspects that have been completely overlooked. The evidence points to destruction of evidence by people working for Hillary Clinton.

To understand the 2015 deletions, we have to start further back in time, in June 2013. Clinton had ended her four-year tenure as secretary of state earlier in 2013, and she hired the Platte River Networks (PRN) computer company to manage her private email server. This was a puzzling hire, to say the least, because PRN was based in Denver, Colorado, far from Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington, DC, and the company was so small that their office was actually an apartment in an ordinary apartment building with no security alarm system. The company wasn’t cleared to handle classified information, nobody in it had a security clearance, and it hadn’t even handled an important out of state contract before.

PRN assigned two employees to handle the Clinton account: Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton. In late June 2013, these two employees moved Clinton’s server from her house in Chappaqua, New York, to an Equinix data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. They removed all the data from the server, moved it to a new server, and then wiped the old server  clean. Both the new and old server were kept running at the data center. At the same time, PRN subcontracted Datto, Inc., to back up the data on the new server. A Datto SIRIS S2000 was bought and connected to the server, functioning like an external hard drive to make periodic back-ups.

Clinton’s emails get sorted

Fast forward to the middle of 2014. The House Benghazi Committee was formed to investigate the US government’s actions surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and soon a handful of emails were discovered relating to this attack involving Clinton’s hdr22@clintonemail.com email address. At this point, nobody outside of Clinton’s inner circle of associates knew she had exclusively used that private email account for all her email communications while she was secretary of state, or that she’d hosted it on her own private email server.

The Benghazi Committee began pressing the State Department for more relevant emails from Clinton. The State Department in turn began privately pressing Clinton to turn over all her work-related emails.

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Politico: Clinton warns against getting ‘distracted’ by Trump’s terror talk

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Hillary Clinton on Monday urged Americans not to get “diverted and distracted” by Donald Trump’s inflammatory words as the United States combats the threat posed by the Islamic State.

“Let’s not get diverted and distracted by the kind of campaign rhetoric we hear coming from the other side. This is a serious challenge,” Clinton told reporters after delivering a statement from White Plains, New York. “We are well equipped to meet it. And we can do so in keeping with smart law enforcement, good intelligence and in concert with our values.”

Clinton addressed the recent string of attacks in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota on Monday, remarking that the terrorist threat of the Islamic State is real while also casting herself as the only candidate with the experience necessary to handle such threats.

“This threat is real but so is our resolve. Americans will not cower. We will prevail. We will defend our country and defeat the evil, twisted ideology of the terrorists,” said Clinton, who implicitly contrasted her role as head of the State Department and Trump’s inexperience in politics and government as she declared, “I’m the only candidate in this race who has been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield.”

Clinton also presented herself as a longtime advocate of “tough vetting” and called for an improved visa system. Her response Monday contradicted Trump’s message. While the Republican presidential nominee seemingly encouraged racial profiling to help law enforcement stop future attacks during a phone interview with “Fox and Friends,” Clinton talked up her bona fides.

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Politico: Obama raises refugee goal to 110,000, infuriating GOP

Syrian refugees

By and

President Barack Obama plans to admit 110,000 refugees from around the world to the United States over the next year — a figure that is 10,000 above his original goal and which immediately set off howls of protest from some Republicans.

The 110,000 figure is expected to include a substantial number of Syrian refugees, whose admission to the U.S. has sparked debate in the presidential race. Republican nominee Donald Trump wants to bar Syrian refugees completely, alleging that terrorists could be hiding among them.

At the same time, the 110,000 figure, which covers the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, is likely to disappoint many supporters of the refugee program, who have been urging the administration to take in as many as 200,000 displaced people from around the world.

A senior Obama administration official confirmed late Tuesday that Secretary of State John Kerry had briefed Congress earlier in the day about the administration’s new plan. He noted that Kerry had said several months ago that the U.S. wanted to admit at least 100,000 refugees worldwide but that it would take more if it could.

The decision to go with 110,000 “is consistent with our belief that all countries should do more to help the world’s most vulnerable people,” the official said.

In an 82-page report to Congress obtained by POLITICO, the Obama administration said it will try to admit a “significantly higher” number of refugees from Syria during the next fiscal year than the 10,000 goal it set for the fiscal year that ends this month. The administration exceeded the 10,000 figure a month ahead of schedule.

“While the vast majority of Syrians would prefer to return home when the conflict ends, it is clear that some remain extremely vulnerable in their countries of asylum and would benefit from resettlement,” states the report, which was prepared by the departments of State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.

Some Republican lawmakers issued statements denouncing the plan on national security and other grounds.

“We must remain compassionate toward refugees, but we also need to make sure that we use common sense,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia. “Unfortunately, President Obama unilaterally increases the number of refugees resettled in the United States each year and gives little thought as to how it will impact local communities.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama and a top adviser to Trump, called Obama’s plan “reckless and extreme.”

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New York Mag: Trump’s Path to Victory Is Starting to Look Very Real

Trump's Deplorables

By Ed Kilgore

The week before last I looked at Donald Trump’s likely “path to victory” and adjudged it as “a tightrope walk down an insanely narrow path to 270 electoral votes.” I’d now take out the adjective insanely and maybe even suggest it’s a walk along a balance beam rather than a tightrope. As the popular-vote margin separating Clinton and Trump gradually shrinks, putting together a map of states Trump might carry involves less conjecture about where he might make gains and more confidence that he might be able to consolidate gains he has already made.

Deciding who is leading nationally or in the battleground states is, of course, a matter of choosing whose measurement of public opinion you consult. I’d automatically assume, unless there is some compelling reason to do otherwise, that polling averages make the most sense. Nationally, the most straightforward of the polling averages, from RealClearPolitics, has Clinton up by two points in a four-way race. That is her smallest lead at RCP since late July. Averages at FiveThirtyEight and HuffPost Pollster factor in trends and poll accuracy data; they give Clinton a slightly larger lead (3.1 percent at FiveThirtyEight, 4.2 percent at HuffPost). It is worth noting that only one national poll has been published with data from September 11, when the unverified conventional wisdom would have it that Hillary Clinton’s standing might have taken a fall. It also appears that Trump is getting, despite contrary expectations earlier, the traditional pro-Republican “bump” when pollsters switch from samples of registered voters to those of likely voters. That could tilt polling averages a bit more in his direction very soon.

So observers are no longer asking (at least not right now) if and when Hillary Clinton’s lead is going to blossom into the double digits, as it has occasionally done in certain polls at different points in the general-election contest. It is, by most accounts, a close race still favoring Clinton.

Something similar has happened in state polling, with a subtle but important difference: What looked a couple of weeks ago like a long wall of states in which Trump needed to overcome a long-standing Clinton lead has gotten shorter. This is most dramatically shown in the state-by-state projections from Daily Kos (a pro-Democratic but, if anything, rather impressively pessimistic outlet), which now gives Trump an advantage not only in the previously red but blue-trending states of Arizona and Georgia, but also in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. Add all that up with the states everyone expects Trump to carry and he’s at 259 electoral votes.

Other state-by-state projections (the Upshot has a nice table of them) have Clinton ahead in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio (though a new Bloomberg poll of Ohio showing Trump up by five points among likely voters could change estimates of that state’s trajectory), but none by such margins that a tilt by a couple of points nationally would not topple all or most of them into Trump’s column. Then comes the point when it starts getting harder for Trump to get across the line to 270. But it is clear that if he can move Pennsylvania — a “blue” state that has been trending “red” and where the demographics offer him some strategic avenues — into the hypercompetitive category, then all things are possible for him.

It is possible, in fact, that Trump is opening up multiple paths to victory. Recent polling in both New Hampshire and Colorado — two states generally conceded earlier to be in Clinton’s pocket — is showing a decided tightening of the race. There’s also fresh evidence Trump could win in the second congressional district of Maine, which independently awards a single electoral vote. There is one scenario where even if Trump loses Pennsylvania he could get to 270 votes via New Hampshire and that 1 vote from Maine.

Clinton’s strategic advantage, however, includes not just multiple paths to 270 EVs, but an advantage in battleground-state ad and field resources. And that’s where it gets really tough for a GOP nominee who cannot afford to lose his best states.

A very granular look at Pennsylvania by Sasha Issenberg and Steven Yaccino at Bloomberg, using proprietary data, suggests that if Clinton successfully turns out her base and her less reliable voters using her GOTV advantage, she will be very tough to beat. Trump would have to “run a perfect ground game, miraculously turn out all his Republican targets, win every expected persuadable vote cast—projected to be around 187,000—and [could] still lose.” According to this analysis, he isn’t likely to win Pennsylvania unless he can dig even further into the remaining Democratic vote in the southwest part of the state.

So it’s possible Trump will hit a wall in Pennsylvania even if he does win all of those other states where white working-class voters offset millennials or minorities. Still, it could be a near thing. In another analysis, Harry Enten concludes Clinton has been outperforming what demographics and voting history would expect her to have in the Keystone State. If, as he suggests, her “natural” lead is only 3 percent, that’s a small cushion.

Sometimes you can get lulled into complacency by win-probability projections that sound immutable but really aren’t. Citigroup put out a warning about that today:

A new note from Citigroup Inc. says that while the firm still puts the probability of Hillary Clinton securing the U.S. presidential election at 65 percent, investors are not taking the remaining chance of a win by Donald Trump very seriously.

“A 35 percent probability for a Trump victory is more meaningful than investors may be appreciating,” the team, led by Chief Global Political Analyst Tina Fordham, writes in a note published on Tuesday. “Political probabilities are not like blackjack — there is only one roll of the dice, and 35 percent probability events happen frequently in real life.”

The Upshot, which rates Clinton at an even higher 79 percent win probability, offers this sobering analogy: “Mrs. Clinton’s chance of losing is about the same as the probability that an N.F.L. kicker misses a 45-yard field goal.”

Continue reading, NYMag.

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AP: Republican deal averts vote on impeaching head of IRS

Koskinen

By Erica Werner

WASHINGTON (AP) — A last-minute deal between conservatives and GOP leaders in the House has averted votes expected Thursday on a measure to impeach the commissioner of the IRS.

Instead, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will testify before Congress next week.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus celebrated the development as a win late Wednesday, as conservatives had long pushed GOP leaders for impeachment hearings against Koskinen. They accuse him of obstructing a congressional investigation into the treatment of tea party groups seeking tax exemptions.

But the agreement canceling the votes came only after conservatives themselves predicted that their impeachment resolution was going to get sidelined by Democratic and Republican opposition Thursday. So instead they settled for a hearing next Wednesday, which would result in an impeachment vote only after the November presidential election, if ever.

“This hearing will give every American the opportunity to hear John Koskinen answer under oath why he misled Congress, allowed evidence pertinent to an investigation to be destroyed, and defied Congressional subpoenas and preservation orders,” the Freedom Caucus said in a statement. “It will also remove any lingering excuses for those who have been hesitant to proceed with this course of action.”

Koskinen has disputed such claims in private meetings with House Republicans in recent days, while in public the agency insisted Wednesday that he “remains focused on the critical work needed for the nation’s tax system.”

Some Republicans, while critical of Koskinen’s conduct, questioned whether it amounted to the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” They worried about setting a bad precedent in pursuing the impeachment claim, especially just ahead of the election. The original conduct the House was investigating, related to how tea party groups were dealt with by the IRS, happened before Koskinen’s tenure.

Already this week President Barack Obama had seized on the issue to ridicule the GOP-led Congress, calling the impeachment push “crazy.”

Because House Republican leadership had balked on moving forward on impeachment proceedings, the Freedom Caucus had used a procedural maneuver that would have forced a floor vote Thursday. But Freedom Caucus members themselves were predicting earlier Wednesday that their resolution would end up getting tabled, which would effectively have killed it.

“The table motion will prevail, at least that’s my expectation,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina.

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Reuters: Aligned with Russia in Syria, Pentagon awkwardly treads on new terrain

Aleppo, Syria
By Phil Stewart and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON

For Pentagon officers who cut their teeth during the Cold War, the prospect of U.S. battlefield cooperation with Russia in Syria is not only uncomfortable. It’s also unprecedented.

Against that background, the reactions of U.S. military officials range from caution to outright skepticism over a Geneva-based “joint integration center” that may soon bring together American and Russian militaries to discuss shared targets for the first time since World War Two.

“There are challenges with this. There is a trust deficit with the Russians,” acknowledged General Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, even as he voiced support for the initiative at a forum on Wednesday.

U.S. officials past and present voiced concerns about the initiative, underscoring the Pentagon’s long-public criticism about the way Russia had been waging war in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who specialized in Russia, warned of dangers ahead.

“Conducting joint operations with the Russian military is fraught with political, military and potentially legal risk,” Farkas told Reuters.

Under the deal, the United States and Russia are aiming for reduced violence over seven consecutive days before they move to the next stage of coordinating military strikes against Nusra Front and Islamic State militants, which are not party to the truce. If the truce holds, coordination could even start on Monday.

At that point, Russia and the United States could, in theory, gradually begin using the joint integration center to share targeting information.

Officials stress the Geneva-based JIC would not be similar to JOCs, the joint operation centers typical in war zones, like Iraq, replete with classified computer systems and giant television screens that show live feeds from armed drones carrying out strikes.

U.S. intelligence officials also have voiced concerns about sharing precise information on the positions of U.S.-backed rebel forces, given that Russia has targeted them in the past.

“The Russians aren’t using precision-guided munitions in Syria, which gives them a perfect excuse to say, ‘Sorry, we weren’t aiming at your guys’,” said one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

Working with Russia on targeting could risk linking Washington to any Russian misconduct.

Other U.S. officials publicly sought to play down those concerns this week, with one Obama administration official saying: “While we may share information on that threat, Russia remains fully responsible for the conduct of its operations.”

There also is a legal hurdle. U.S. officials say Defense Secretary Ash Carter would need to issue a waiver to a U.S. law that puts strict limitations on U.S. military cooperation with Russia.

Carter, a fierce critic of Moscow, was skeptical of military coordination with Russia during internal Obama administration discussions. He has publicly backed the agreement and said on Wednesday the ceasefire, if implemented, would ease suffering.

“We in the Defense Department will play whatever role we have (in the process) with our accustomed excellence,” he said.

Advocates for the initiative say the international community has run out of good choices in Syria’s war, in which more than 400,000 people have died and more than 11 million people have been displaced.

Continue reading, Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton and John Walcott; Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)

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Reuters: U.S. confirms two more freed Guantanamo inmates rejoined militant groups

Gitmo

By Mark Hosenball

In the first six months of 2016, two more militants released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to fighting, the U.S. government said on Wednesday.

Washington has confirmed that a total of nine people freed from Guantanamo have rejoined militant groups since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the Office of Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI.

The report said the number of militants freed by the Obama administration whom U.S. agencies “suspect” of having returned to action dropped to 11 from 12 between January and July.

An official familiar with the latest statistics said this number dropped because a freed detainee previously categorized as “suspected” of returning to the battlefield now has been confirmed to have done so.

The United States opened the Guantanamo detention facility in 2002, the year after the Sept. 11 attacks by Islamist militants on New York and Washington, to hold what it described as foreign terrorism suspects. Most have been held without charge or trial for more than a decade, drawing international condemnation.

Obama had hoped to close the prison during his first year in office. In February, he rolled out a plan aimed at shutting it, but that is opposed by many Republican lawmakers and some of his fellow Democrats.

Overall, the figures released by ODNI still showed that the administration of Obama’s predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, released far more detainees from Guantanamo than the Obama administration has.

The figures show that 113 of the 532 detainees released by Bush – 21.2 percent – have returned to fighting, while the nine detainees released since 2009 who have re-engaged are only 5.6 percent of the prisoners freed by Obama.

Continue reading, Reuters.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; editing by Grant McCool)

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Daily Caller: Colin Powell’s Personal Email Hacked, Under Pressure To Endorse Hillary Clinton

By Peter Hasson

The Daily Caller can exclusively reveal that two years worth of emails have been stolen from former secretary of state Colin Powell’s personal email account.

The emails range from between June 2014 to August 2016. The most recent emails are dated August 19, 2016.

When asked for comment regarding the apparent hack, Powell replied: “I wasn’t aware of any infiltration of my Gmail account. If accurate my privacy has been violated.”

“As a private citizen I would hope journalists would respect that privacy,” he added.

The emails were given to hacktivist group DCLeaks by unnamed hackers. They emails are currently password protected. DCLeaks puts the total number of hacked Powell emails in their possession at around 30,000.

The Daily Caller was able to examine some of the hacked emails, which cover topics such as Donald Trump’s feud with the Khan family and Hillary Clinton’s email server.

The hacked emails reveal some people close to Powell expect him to endorse Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election.

Former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman — a Republican who has said she will vote for Clinton over Trump — sent Powell an email in late July with the subject line, “Hillary.”

“Have you endorsed her yet?” the one line email said.

“Nope,” Powell replied.  “By the way, if you have a WSJ today take a look at my piece on immigration. I can send it you missed. On Oped pages.”

“You’ll recall that in 2008 and 2012 I waited until early fall,” he added.

Powell confirmed the email chain’s legitimacy to TheDC.

On July 30, Powell emailed several people a link to a Huffington Post article on Trump’s then-budding feud with the Khans.

On August 2, longtime Powell friend and adviser Harlan Ullman asked Powell, “when are you going to throw the knock out blow?”

Continue reading, The Daily Caller.

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Fox News: BIAS ALERT: CBS edits out Bill Clinton slip on Hillary health

By FoxNews.com

CBS Evening News edited out what sure sounded like a Freudian slip and a lawyerly correction when Bill Clinton was talking about how often his wife collapses from dehydration.

“She’s been well, if it is it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors, because frequently, not frequently, rarely, but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing has happened to her where she got severely dehydrated,” the former president said of Hillary Clinton, who is seeking the office he once held.

The CBS News website posted video showing the exchange, and Clinton’s mid-sentence correction. But when the exchange with Charlie Rose occurred during the nightly newscast, the “frequently, not frequently, rarely” part edited out.

For folks who wonder if the public is being told all there is to know about the former secretary of state’s health, Clinton’s full sentence seemed to hold a tantalizing clue. By the time other news channels, including Fox, picked up the comment, the slipup was gone.

The Daily Caller was first to compare the ex-president’s full statement to the one that aired, and NewsBusters followed up with a side-by-side comparison.

CBS backpedaled Tuesday and included the full quote on their morning newscast. NewsBusters claimed it was only the latest example of deft editing by the liberal media to make Hillary Clinton look good, or her opponent, Donald Trump, look bad.

Continue reading, Fox News.

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Fox News: Kid Rock, KISS rip Colin Kaepernick in concert

By FoxNews.com

Kid Rock had three words to say about Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem.

In a new video of his Friday concert at Fenway Park in Boston, the singer stopped in the middle of singing “Born Free” to say “F–k Colin Kaepernick.”

The crowd went wild while Rock continued to perform in front of a giant American flag.

The rocker isn’t the first celebrity to speak out against the San Francisco 49ers quarterback.

Over the weekend, KISS took aim at the football player on their “Freedom to Rock” tour.

“In case you didn’t know this tour is called the ‘Freedom to Rock [tour],” KISS’ Paul Stanley said on stage. “A lot of times people that are born free think that freedom is free and it’s not. Freedom is only free because there are people willing to sacrifice to keep us free.”

He then announced a $150,000 donation to “Hiring our heroes” which helps veterans find employment.

Before leading the audience to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and a rock version of the “Star Spangled Banner,” Stanley told the crowd, “You should remember, patriotism is always cool. Loving your country is always cool. Standing up, respecting and honoring our military is always cool. So, to show some respect between pick-throwing, we’re going to put our right hands over our hearts and why don’t we say the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Continue reading, Fox News.

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