After presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email scandal seemed to wane from the media’s ever-probing coverage, a new discovery has put it back at the fore. Paul Combetta, an IT specialist at Platte River Networks has been linked to a Reddit.com forum post that appears to ask for advice on how to “strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email”. Platte River Networks is the company that was responsible for maintaining Hillary Clinton’s email servers during the Benghazi scandal of 2012.
In a recently deleted post authored by Reddit.com user “stonetear,” the user probes for information despite the fact that, as commenter “borismkv” explains, “You can’t change them [email addresses]. If there was a feature in Exchange [email server] that allowed this, it could result in major legal issues.”
The suspiciously deleted posts from “stonetear” are being directly linked to Combetta. After a tweet from twitter user @GOPPollAnalyst on Sunday the archived posts were seemingly linked to Combetta via a note posted on a web page that says Combetta can be contacted at stonetear@gmail.com. Further digging by others on the internet has found that the domain name combetta.com is registered to the email address stonetear@gmail.com, and the now-deleted Etsy marketplace for the user “stonetear” was registered to a “Paul Combetta.”
This discovery spawned strong language from House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith in a letter he wrote to the legal counsel for Platte River Networks. Chairman Smith forcefully requested their compliance in providing interviews to the Committee immediately or face subpoenas: “I am concerned that Mr. Combetta may have made an attempt to delete relevant posts… from his Reddit.com username just hours after reports initially surfaced on September 19, 2016, about his request for assistance on deleting email addresses from archived emails.”
Combetta, as well as six others, are being asked to appear for interviews in front of the House Science Committee. This matter is complicated by the fact that Combetta was being issued immunity from the Department of Justice during their investigation of Platte River Networks. Combetta, as well as one other employee from Platte River Networks, invoked the congressional right not to testify in a September 13 hearing for the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The destruction of evidence that is pertinent to an investigation is a direct violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley act’s Anti-Shredding clause: “Anyone who, knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States” is in violation and can face severe penalties.
While Hillary Clinton or her staffers are not directly linked to the actions of Combetta or Platte River Networks, the Reddit.com post suspiciously coincided with a mandated July 23rd 2014 response date for a Freedom of Information Act request sent to Hillary’s camp. The FOIA request was for “[a]ny and all activity logs, reports, or other records produced by the U.S. Africa Command operations center between September 10, 2012 and September 13, 2012 regarding, concerning, or related to the attack at the U.S. Special Mission Compound and Classified Annex in Benghazi, Libya.”
The Reddit.com post asking how to change email addresses was created on July 24th 2014.
Photo by Paula R. Lively on Flickr.
