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by growupkids 4131 days ago
I'll probably get down voted for this, so be it. I worked in the Clinton whitehouse in the mid-90s. Every time you sent an email, which was on a cluster of VAX servers, you got a full screen notification about the presidential records act, and you had to agree affirmatively if something was, or was not an official record. If you said no, it still got archived, it just got flagged so a FoIA might not be valid against your email. We simply backed everything up to tape, and sent it to NARA. My first week there we got subpeoneDed. I remember being asked to volunteer to go up to greenbelt Maryland to help restore tapes for records requests.

There is absolutely no way she or anyone else that worked woth here didnt know your needed to archive emails. Subpoenas happened regularly, and everyone knew Emails = record. Years later after I left I landed a contract with a government contractor to recover thse tapes, against federal lawsuits, emails are records and the courts want them. Par for the course. I'd argue the Clinton whitehouse was the first administration to truly face electronic records retention effects with the courts. Nixon maybe being the first with audio tapes, the clintons got email Subpeonas.

So when I hear she was running her own email server and staying outside federal records retention requirements, I both nodded knowingly that I would expect nothing less from the wife of a man that learned first hand: keep no records, and then shook my head ruefully knowingly why she did it:

Keep no records.

When public leaders avoid record keeping requirements, this prevents public scrutiny, and that means they no longer work for you because they aren't accountable to you. Maybe you agree with her, but you'll never know what she did in your name. Hillary knew what she was doing. I have no doubt of this, as I said I would expect nothing less. I would be shocked if she didn't do this. Stunned really. I'm still paranoid about what I put in written form (text, email, etc.) to this day.

This was calculated, to keep her unaccountable and off the record.