2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: She's SUCH A LIAR. And she thinks people are STUPID. [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Apparently, Clinton caused to be printed out paper copies of her emails. No, printing out files is not a crime in itself. What she's criticized for -- I don't know if it's a crime but it sounds deceptive -- is that (1) some of the emails were removed from the stack of printouts, and (2) some were included only in redacted form. As to both points, if there was no indication of omissions, then the information dump was deceptive.
Thus, my interpretation of "terrible criminal" is "incompetent criminal". Although the server was wiped, all the emails in full text could still be recovered from it. Furthermore, this other company apparently created a backup copy on another server, a fact that may or may not have been known to Clinton. Therefore, if the release of an almost-complete paper file was an effort to conceal some emails and parts of others, then the attempt was unlikely to succeed.
You conclude that she wasn't trying to hide anything. What you don't say, however, is what the alternative (presumably innocent) explanation was. If in fact she released a set of paper copies that was so voluminous as to appear complete, but it wasn't complete, and if there was no accompanying indication that it wasn't complete, then my first impression is that it was an attempt to hide something. Perhaps her thought was that the FBI wouldn't bother trying to retrieve anything from the wiped server because the agents would have the paper file.
If there were 30,000 or 60,000 pieces of paper, it would at least be conceivable that a handful of them could go missing during the process, just through inadvertence. I wonder whether the ones that were omitted were quite unexceptional -- which is what you'd expect if it was just inadvertence -- or if they were particularly problematic for Clinton. Even if you credit the explanation of inadvertence, however, it's much harder to make that defense for the production of redacted emails. If the facts are as stated, then it does look like an attempt at concealment.