In 2014, as part of the ongoing investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email whilst Secretary of State, Clinton was asked to turn over all 'work related' emails covering her time at the State Department. Throughout the fall of 2014 Clintons chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson sorted through Clintons emails separating her work ones from her personal ones. By December 2014 she had turned over 30,000+ 'work related' emails.
A year later at the start of 2016, after the investigation had uncovered more potentially classified emails not originally in the batch of 30,000, the FBI felt they were unable to close the case until they had interviewed Clinton and her aides, and analyze the laptops Mills and Samuelson had used to sort through the initial batch of 30,000 emails.
Important notes for later:
The 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the investigation in "December 2014" were emails taken from an archive that was copied onto Mills and Samuelsons laptops by Combetta (sever admin) in "late summer 2014". Wikileaks confirms the archive covers June 30th 2010 to August 12th 2014.
The laptops used to 'cull' the emails were erased using BleachBit sometime between "November 2014 and January 2015".
Fast Forward to June 2016
Looking a the IG report we can see that at the time, Clinton, Mills and Samuelson had a problem. Because more potentially classified documents were uncovered in the 18 months after Clinton had produced her first batch of emails, the FBI had no choice but to interview Clinton and her aides, and to inspect the 2 laptops, before they closed the investigation.
Shortly after the FBI first asked Mills and Samuelson if they could inspect their laptops Cheryl Mills claimed Attorney/client privilege. This was followed by a lot of legal wrangling by Department of Justice, the DNC, and the FBI whilst they all tried to work out what data the FBI analysts was allowed to access. These laptops were important to the FBI investigation as both laptops, at one point, had complete sets of Clinton emails from her private server. As well as being given immunity from criminal prosecution for anything found on the laptops Mills and Samuelson also agreed on a consent agreement for the searches which are laid out below.
The search limitations Mills and Samuelson agreed upon as part of their immunity deal limited the FBI to only being able to search for emails, documents, and files relating to Platte River Networks (Hillarys back-up server) that were created prior to February 1st 2015.
This date stuck me as odd. Why, in June 2016, did the FBI only want to search the 2 laptops for emails from before February 1st 2015 when they knew the laptops had been BleachBit sometime between November 2014 and January 2015. This meant the consent agreement limited the FBIs search of the laptops to a window of only 1 to 3 months. I see 2 reasons why Feb 1st 2015 was the cutoff date for the searches.
The FBI were only specifically looking for traces of the email archive Combetta (Platte River Networks) copied to Mills and Samuelsons laptops in late summer 2014 before they were BleachBit.
Mills and Samuelson didn't want the FBI searching through emails and documents that were created after they BleachBit their laptops (January 2015 onward) as these emails possibly contained DNC and Clinton Foundation corruption.
At the time, some of the FBI employees involved in the case were concerned about how Mills and Samuelsons consent agreement and subsequent searches of the laptops was being handled.
Under normal circumstances the filter team, "with the assistance of OTD", would work to purge any data deemed not relevant to an investigation. According to this agreement though the "OTD would provide the emails from its own initial search of the laptops to the filter team". This meant the OTD had the power to pick and choose which documents the filter team would ultimately receive. In this instance it would appear OTD were themselves the filter team. So, who are the OTD?
The Operational Technology Division (OTD)
OTD — based in Quantico, Virginia—develops and deploys technology-based solutions to enable and enhance the FBI’s intelligence, national security, and law enforcement operations. OTD is staffed with a wide array of highly-skilled and multi-disciplined agents, engineers, electronic technicians, forensic examiners, and analysts who support our most significant investigations and national security operations with advanced electronic surveillance, digital forensics, technical surveillance, tactical operations, and communications capabilities.
You can see from the IG report above that on June 8th an FBI attorney "had concerns with the filter process set forth in the consent agreements". She was frustrated at the fact the filter team, which was to be made up of “two attorneys, one FBI agent, and one FBI analyst", didn't include anyone from the FBI investigative team. Page and Strzoks frustration with the OTD and filter team is reflected in the text messages they sent to each other around the same time.
Leading up to the text message Peter Strzok sent to Lisa Page at 13:08:59 on Thursday June 9th 2016 (below) the Clinton email investigative team seemed rather angry and frustrated with the OTD and filter team.
But by the next evening (19:21:33 on Friday June 10th 2016) Strozk had sent a message to Page letting her know the OTD was ready (presumably to receive the laptops). Then a little over an hour later at 20:46:10 Strozk text Page again, this time letting her know he had the laptops.
So what happened at the OTD between June 9th and 10th for the FBI and DOJ to come to an agreement over the search of the laptops? A change of leadership happened.
Todd McCall Named Assistant Director for the Operational Technology Division | FBI](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/todd-mccall-named-assistant-director-for-the-operational-technology-division) - June 9 2016
FBI Director James B. Comey has named Todd McCall as assistant director for the Operational Technology Division. He served on the Dallas Division’s Evidence Response Team and was involved in the management of the investigations into the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11, 2001 crash of United Air Lines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
24 hours after James Comey named Todd McCall as Assistant Director for the OTD, and Mills and Samuelsons laptops were in the hands of lead Clinton investigator, Peter Strzok, the OTD set about analyzing them. The rapid change of pace in the investigation after the change of leadership at the OTD was no coincidence.
By 1:07:58AM on the 11th, just 5.5 hours after receiving the laptops, Strozk sent another message to Page confirming OTD had completed phase one of the analysis, something Page was surprised about.
Finally on Monday June 13th, after the weekend rush to analyze the laptops, the investigative team settled on a date for Hillary Clintons interview.
FBI interviews Hillary Clinton for more than 3 hours in email probe | WaPo - 07/02/2016
FBI agents interviewed Hillary Clinton for 3½ hours Saturday morning — a signal that the investigation into her use of a private email account while she was secretary of state is drawing to a close.
2 Important Dates
- June 27, 2016: Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton on board a parked plane in Arizona.
New holes in Loretta Lynch’s story on the Hillary probe July 6, 2017https://nypost.com/2017/07/06/new-holes-in-loretta-lynchs-story-on-the-hillary-probe/
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.
Among other things, they want to know if she or any of her Justice Department staff “ever communicated with Amanda Renteria,” who headed Clinton’s political operations during the campaign. Renteria, who has been identified in the document as the senior Clinton campaign aide
- July 5nd 2016: Comey put out his [press release clearing Clinton of any intentional wrongdoing.
Things to take away
Why did the investigation team finally get their hands on Mills and Samuelsons laptops just 24 hours after Comey named Todd McCall** Assistant Director for the OTD?
Why on June 10th 2016 did the FBI only search the laptops for work documents created before February 1st 2015 when they knew the laptops hard drives had been BleachBit sometime around January 2015?
Why on June 10th 2016, the same day that Strzok received Mills and Samuelsons laptops, was CrowdStrike deleting 'Russian Malware' from DNC Laptops?
In part 2 we will be looking at some of the important dates surrounding the DNC leaks, Seth Rich, and CrowdStrike, and finally connecting them all together.
FORTIFIED
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