A computer specialist who maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server divulged sensitive security information on a public web forum, opening the door for hackers to easily access the former secretary of state’s emails.

Paul Combetta of Denver-based Platte River Networks posted Clinton’s proprietary IP address on a reddit.com web forum, soliciting help from clandestine IT specialists to help fix security patches on Clinton’s email server. According to one such post, obtained by True Pundit, Combetta divulged publicly that the secure socket layer encryption that protects the data from intrusion was not functioning. In an effort to have other IT specialists ping the server to try and troubleshoot the security holes, Combetta publicly provided Clinton’s coveted IP address.

In one particularly damaging forum post, Combetta in 2014 writing under the screen name “stonetear,” shared Clinton’s private server information with reddit user “Afroman” thanking him for his help and acknowledged the server was wide open to hackers. In the process, Combetta gave up Clinton’s IP address by publishing pings to the box for every would-be hacker to see and use.



Full transcript of this archived reddit.com post can be read here.

Social media users and sleuths were busy combing Combetta’s reddit.com posts Monday and early Tuesday after True Pundit’s story went national. One user with an obvious IT background likewise recognized Combetta had opened the door to Clinton’s server by posting a 2015 forum entry from the Platte River employee.

https://twitter.com/ANONAMERICANHQ/status/778024984530812928

Yesterday, Combetta deleted the above web conversations from reddit.com after True Pundit broke a news story detailing how Hillary Clinton and her aides directed Platte River Networks to systematically alter, fabricate and forge emails to protect her communications from being “exposed to anyone.” The request was so unusual, complex, and likely illegal that Combetta had to turn to other IT gurus on reddit.com for a solution to try to satisfy Clinton’s demand.

Complying with such request would violate a host of federal criminal statutes of falsifying and altering federal records. Even Clinton directing Platte River to implement such a scheme likewise violates a number of federal criminal laws.

Hours after the story was published an analysis by True Pundit determined Combetta had deleted all posts and messages from his “stonetear” reddit.com account, including the smoking-gun correspondences detailed in the original expose. True Pundit, however, warehoused many of the posts in case they were deleted from the web site.

After publication, the True Pundit story went national with many larger news sites promoting the story as their own.

Combetta is also accused of deleting an untold number Clinton’s emails despite orders from Congress to preserve them. Platte River’s destruction of these emails followed months of warnings from by the House Select Committee on Benghazi to obtain them. The house select committee likewise instructed Clinton’s attorney David Kendall on Dec. 2, 2014, to retain these emails, and a formal House subpoena was issued on March 4, 2015.

Combetta and a Platte River colleague Bill Thornton were on Capitol Hill last week answering subpoenas to testify before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Combetta refused to answer all of committee chairman Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s questions about his role in maintaining Clinton’s private server. That included Chaffetz’s inquiry on whether Combetta received an immunity agreement from the Justice Deoartment to cooperate with the FBI’s now defunct criminal investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified email while secretary of state. Combetta cited his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself at the hearing. Combetta’s immunity agreement was divulged in a recent New York Times article detailing its stipulations.

Congressman Chaffetz’s committee has shed light on other internal Platte River communications where company executives scurried to distance the company from what they believed was Clinton “covering up some shaddy s- -t.”

In another internal message, one executive called Clinton’s requests to Platte River “Hillary’s coverup operation.”

These new revelations, however, place a white-hot light on the FBI’s arrangement with Combetta. If FBI agents were aware of this request from Clinton to illegally mask her emails, one has to wonder even more than usual how Clinton walked away without an indictment form the bureau’s year-long probe. This only adds to other recent troubling revelations regarding the FBI’s investigation.

True Pundit’s Original Expose can be read here.

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Queen #HillarysEmails Server Hosting Company BUSTED Erasing Backups, Then Clams Up at Oversight Hearing Part 1 RT pic.twitter.com/pHPS5sHAM3 — Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) September 15, 2016