Pretty much as I predicted nearly three weeks ago, Hillary Clinton has wiped clean her server so that there’s no chance of reviewing the emails she did not turn over to the Department of State.  Here’s what her lawyer wrote to Congressman Trey Gowdy:

To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be academic, I have confirmed with the secretary’s IT support that no emails…..for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server.

That won’t stop people from trying to find a way to still recover those emails, but let me offer a word of advice: it’s not going to happen and you’re getting played here.

Clearly, she’s still not telling the full story, only the next little bit to string things along.  If she wanted to tell the full story, she would not have said that she “chose not to retain” the personal emails in her UN presser.  She would have said exactly what happened to them and why they cannot be recovered at that time.

This time, note the curious phrasing “any back-up systems associated with the server”. That’s overly specific, and it leaves the question open of whether the emails exist someplace that is not a “back-up systems associated with the server”.

Normally, one could assume there would be backups still in existence. It is normal computer operations practice is to keep rolling backups for several months, not just the most recent few.  Information released today suggests the emails were finally wiped in December.  That means there should be some older backups floating around from before then, maybe in off-site storage.  Should be, but of course there are not, because every action taken by Clinton was with the intent of blocking any ability for the GOP to do oppo research using her emails.

But since the GOP is allowing itself to be trolled, here’s how they’ll be trolled next:

• Gowdy will again ask for any other media holding backups of the server that might exist anywhere, only to be told that there are no backups remaining of the server from the time when the emails were still present.
• Gowdy will then ask for the hard disk of the server itself to be subject to a forensic analysis to try to recover the missing emails.  But, in the end, it will turn out that the original hard disk in question has since been upgraded to a new disk, and the old disk (that might have recoverable old emails on it) has been wiped and physically destroyed and is no longer in the possession of the Clintons.

The emails are not going to ever be recovered and there will never be any way to prove that she acted in a manner that was not legal.

The only question the GOP needs to ask itself is why does Hillary think it’s in her interests to string this along, and just how badly is the GOP damaging themselves by playing the game her way?

In chess, it’s considered bad form to keep playing after your opponent has declared a checkmate and has proven it to be so.  The GOP was checkmated long ago, and just looks like amateur players who don’t know the rules of the game well enough to realize it.