It appears one of the IT guys who set up the private, unsanctioned email server Hillary Clinton used during her tenure as secretary of State asked redditors to help him delete the evidence.
A Reddit account that appears to belong to Paul Combetta, of Platte River Networks (PRN) — the company that set up Clinton’s email server, which was housed in a bathroom and less secure than a Gmail account — asked other users how to hide emails belonging to a “VIP.” He then tried to cover this up by deleting all of the posts and comments ever posted under that username.
The user, stonetear, which is linked to the email address stonetear@gmail.com, reportedly belongs to Combetta, as the email address is registered to combetta.com and an Etsy username (“stonetear”) belonging to an individual named Paul Combetta, according to U.S. News and World Report’s Steven Nelson.
On Monday, stonetear deleted all of his comments and posts in an attempt to memory hole his pleas for help in disassociating a VIP’s email address from old messages. Archives of stonetear’s activity prior to his deleting spree show he asked fellow redditors for help deleting a “VIP’s” email address from a bunch of archived emails.
The timing of his question is suspicious. His query is dated July 24, 2014 — the day after the State Department agreed to turn over Clinton’s emails to the House committee investigating Clinton’s handling of the terror attack in Benghazi, Nelson noted.
Combetta, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence during a House hearing last week probing Clinton’s unsanctioned use of her private email server while a public employee, was offered immunity by the Department of Justice in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI’s investigation.
