Clinton email wiper appears to have asked online how to hide 'VIP' info
By Maxim Lott
Published September 20, 2016
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...-vip-info.html

Archived comments unearthed by citizen-detectives on Reddit indicate that Paul Combetta -- the tech specialist who deleted Hillary Clinton’s emails from her server -- may have sought advice on the website for how to hide a certain “VIP’s” email address.

One archived comment from July 24, 2014 – during the same month that the State Department first asked Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to turn over the former secretary of state’s work-related emails from her personal server – shows Reddit user “stonetear” asking others on the site:

“Hello all- I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email… Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?”

Multiple Reddit users at the time responded that it was not possible, saying Microsoft does not include an option to change addresses on existing emails because altering them could be used by people to evade court-ordered discovery procedures.

One wrote: “[If Microsoft Exchange] allowed this, it could result in major legal issues. There may be ways to hack a solution, but I am not aware of any.”

User “stonetear” responded: “The issue is that these emails involve the private email address of someone you'd recognize, and we're trying to replace it with a placeholder address as to not expose it.”

Reddit user “stonetear” appears to be a username used by Paul Combetta, the tech specialist with Platte River Networks who ultimately deleted Clinton’s emails and reportedly has received immunity from the Justice Department. Reddit users typically do not link real names to their accounts, but the website Etsy shows the profile “stonetear,” created in 2011, is registered to the name Paul Combetta. The email address "stonetear@gmail.com" is also linked to Combetta’s name, and the domain name combetta.com is registered under that email....


...On Monday, as users on Reddit uncovered the old comments asking for tech advice, user “stonetear” began deleting every one of his comments and posts – but not before other Reddit users managed to archive them using the website “archive.is,” which allows anyone to archive a webpage (the archived page is then hosted on archive.is indefinitely, even if someone later deletes or alters the original.)

On Monday morning, one Reddit poster wrote “He's actually deleting his comments in real tim[e] right here.” Another made a video of the comments being deleted on the screen as he refreshed the page.

User “stonetear” made several comments in 2014 that line up with the Clinton scandal timeline....