Hillary's Server

According to a Washington Post article, the IT company that handled Hillary Clinton's server claims they never wiped her server, nor do they have any knowledge that it was wiped.  The assumption here is that e-mails that had been deleted from the server could be recovered.  Conservatives following this soap opera of a political story have been mildly giddy about this prospect.  The belief is that she deleted e-mails with marked classified information or, much worse, evidence that she peddled her influence to benefit her non-profit, which provides income for her family.

Conservatives should not necessarily be excited by this revelation.  There are several problems with the statement the company made concerning the server.  The short story is, it could be manipulated to seem to prove that there was nothing deleted that would be incriminating.

Let's assume for the first case scenario that the IT company is lying.  They wiped the server by using a simple program that writes gibberish on the entire hard drive multiple times.  A "DOD" wipe overwrites it three times and would probably take about 5 hours, depending on the size of the drive.  They could, then, reinstall the base operating system and whatever other programs and files, like the e-mails she never claimed to have erased.  I would go one step further and actually load the truly innocuous personal e-mails and then delete them.  This way, when the hard drive is being investigated they find the deleted e-mails and everything appears on the up and up.  This is, in my opinion, a highly unlikely possibility.  It gets a bit conspiratorial, and it only takes one person to blow it up.

Let's assume, this time, the IT company is telling the truth.  They say they have "no knowledge of the server being wiped."  This does not eliminate the possibility that a single employee, on their own or directed by the Clintons, was able to wipe the "empty" portion of the server, leaving the "used" portion intact.  This is far more likely but possibly more easy to detect by forensics.

Another possibility is that the more sensitive information was wiped in the four months between Hillary's role as Secretary of State and when it was handed over to the IT company that handed it over to the FBI.  During this time, the individual from State, whom she was paying personally, would presumably have access to it, and motivation to protect the Clintons.  He would be most familiar with what's on it, how it is set up and how to delete it effectively.  The fact that he will plead the 5th unless he receives immunity certainly makes it appear that this is a distinct possibility.

If any of these three possibilities actually happened, it will result in a statement that the server was not wiped, and all of the data contained were either turned over or show no evidence of wrongdoing.  This statement will be used by supporters as proof that, while she was wrong in using her own e-mail server and may have been in the wrong for the classified information she did turn over, she did nothing criminally.  It would actually be a smokescreen.  If it was wiped effectively, with evidence covered up and misleading information deliberately placed on it, then she would have effectively used the right's own investigation to falsely prove that she's innocent.

In light of the statements from the IT company that stored the server, the results of the investigation should be taken with a grain of salt.  Given the Clinton's history and reputation for hampering investigations and general shady behavior, there is even more reason to be skeptical.