Donald Trump has his way of signaling his supporters that they shouldn’t cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller by demonstrating his willingness to hand out pardons for lying under oath and disobeying court orders. But Trump’s late-night phone chat partner has a more direct approach.
On Wednesday evening, Sean Hannity used his evening appearance on Fox News to give a crash course in destroying evidence.
Hannity: Maybe Mueller's witnesses, I don't know ... If I advised them to follow Hillary Clinton’s lead, delete all your emails and then acid-wash your emails and hard drives on the phones, then take your phones and bash them with a hammer to little itsy bitsy pieces, use BleachBit, remove the sim cards and then take the pieces and hand them over to Robert Mueller, and say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, this is equal justice under the law.
What Hannity is talking about concerning Hilary Clinton was Clinton’s response to a subpoena demanding that she turn over emails on her personal server that were related to her role at the State Department. Following that subpoena, a team went through Clinton’s emails, and identified which were work-related and which were personal. The first group of 30,000 emails was sent to the State Department. The second group of 32,000 was destroyed using an open-source software program called BitBleach. Donald Trump has since insisted that Clinton “bleached” or “acid washed” her emails, apparently believing it was a physical process. Trump has also repeatedly indicated that Clinton took extraordinary actions, saying “The most sophisticated person never heard about acid washing. Acid washing is a very expensive process and that’s to really get rid of them.” In fact, BitBleach is free, widely used in disposing of old hard drives, and removing the emails would have taken, at most, a few minutes.
Rudy Giuliani has also furthered the lie by saying that Clinton used tools associated with drug dealers and the Mafia: “This software is very expensive and is used by criminals seeking to hide evidence from law enforcement.” In fact, BitBleach is regarded as a moderate solution for home and business users, not the level of technology that would be used by more sophisticated—or criminal—operations.
Hilary Clinton’s use of a private email server was a mistake—one that occurred in 2009 when government systems were far from user-friendly, or secure, and policies around such use were far from clear. But she produced the emails requested, and used a free consumer-level product to protect her personal information. It may be a long way from best practices, but it’s not obstruction.
What Sean Hannity is telling those under investigation by Mueller to do? That’s obstruction.
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On the phone issue, Hilary Clinton apparently went through eight different devices during her time at the State Department. In an interview, a Clinton aide reported smashing two old devices after Clinton had upgraded. These devices had not been subpoenaed or requested by anyone. The aide was taking appropriate precautions before turning them over for electronic recycling. The incident was years before the congressional subpoena and unrelated to any search by the FBI.
What, exactly, is supposed to be in the oft-cited emails isn’t clear. Was it supposed to be classified information handled inappropriately? Jared Kushner has been handing classified information over so his friends can use it to hunt down opponents. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly insisted that the FBI release classified information, even when they’ve been informed that the release would be dangerous to assets on the ground. The pretense that Hilary needs to be locked up for handling this information on her own server, while Republicans can simultaneously throw rules about classified information to the wind, seems more than a little contradictory.
But then, everything about whatever it is that Hilary is supposed to have done—it was always just … something. Something bad. The details are unimportant.
Meanwhile, what Sean Hannity is proposing is directly related to emerging stories that Robert Mueller has been asking those brought in for questioning by the special counsel investigation to produce their electronic devices. Hannity is directly addressing witnesses in an active investigation, and telling them to destroy information that has been requested by that investigation.
Of course, Hannity also said he was only kidding—right before he repeated his advice.
Hannity: Mueller wants everyone's cellphones. My advice to them, not really, kidding, bad advice, would be, follow Hillary's lead. Delete them, acid wash them, bust them up, take out the SIM cards and say here, Mr. Mueller, here. I’m following Hillary's lead.
If Hannity is giving that advice … maybe he should also be taking it. Just to see how that works out. After all, both the person who practices spoliation of evidence and the person who suggests it are considered to have “consciousness of guilt.”