Did Hillary Clinton destroy phones with a hammer?

Question

According to US President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton destroyed phones with a hammer, presumably during the email scandal mid-2016.

This is the first I've heard of that and it sounds... suspicious. Is there any evidence of Clinton or her campaign destroying mobile phones with a hammer?

Physically destroying electronics isn't unusual, if you e.g. want to throw them away and want to make sure no data remains on them. — Mad Scientist, Jun 16 '17 at 09:51
@MadScientist No, it is both stupid and unusual. Breaking a device's screen accomplishes nothing. I have worked in places where the data was sensitive, when you are finished with a device you remove the data storage, be that a harddrive or some from of flash storage. Nothing that does not target the data carrying part itself is likely to be particularly effective. — Jonathon, Jun 16 '17 at 11:52
@JonathonWisnoski I should have been more specific, just from the description "hitting the phones with a hammer" it is not clear if that is sufficient to destroy all data. You have to make sure that you actually destroy the flash storage (which is not necessarily removable on phones). — Mad Scientist, Jun 16 '17 at 12:11
Anecdotally: I have tried destroying a phone with a hammer. I was surprised at how resilient it was. It didn't shatter into pieces on the first blow, as I would have predicted. — Oddthinking, Jun 16 '17 at 16:55
I have restored the original claim of the question in the title, as that is also the claim presented in the tweet. If we want to examine the explicit claim, it is relevant *who* destroyed phones. If the question is mainly about the implicit claim - Clinton obstructed justice - the title would need major revisions, and ideally a better source for the claim. — tim, Jun 17 '17 at 23:10
@tim: I disagree. If you dismiss Trump's claim because it wasn't Clinton herself wielding the hammer, you have attacked a strawman based on pedantry. It is clear from context that Trump is employing [synecdoche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche). The background facts are well known. — Oddthinking, Jun 17 '17 at 23:20
@Oddthinking I see your point (feel free to revert), but I think that, when possible, a title should represent the actual claim as closely as possible (answers can then add additional context and explanations). IMHO the rephrasing does change the implication of the claim (as stated, it expresses the believe that Clinton either did it herself or ordered others to do so, or at least had knowledge of it, which isn't necessarily the case with the revised title). — tim, Jun 17 '17 at 23:48
Trump thinks Obama is not American. His opinion can hardly be relied upon to be based in fact. — GordonM, Jun 19 '17 at 07:47
Keep in mind, Trump continues to claim that she bleached her phones, in the same claims. It's not clear that he doesn't think that's literal. — PoloHoleSet, Jun 20 '17 at 15:29
@Oddthinking - Yeah, but you probably weren't trying to destroy a fragile relic like the Blackberry that Clinton uses/used. — PoloHoleSet, Jun 20 '17 at 15:30

score 25 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 19 '17 at 12:51

There are several claims to be addressed in that tweet:

Explicit claims:

1. Hillary Clinton is crooked.

The definition of "crooked" is unclear. One particular definition would require Hillary Clinton to be guilty of some specific crimes beyond reasonable doubt - for that particular definition the claim is false. Another definition of crooked merely requires Hillary Clinton to be dishonest, which - as with most public figures - is subject to debate. Yet another definition only requires her to be a professional politician, in which case it is true.

2. Hillary Clinton destroyed phones with a hammer.

Hard to prove, there is no evidence she personally destroyed a phone with a hammer, and no evidence otherwise. Some of her phones were physically destroyed on disposal, so this is likely a misrepresentation of something else, which I'll get to in the implicit claims. Also, I'm adding "destroy phone with a hammer" to my bucket list.

3. Hillary Clinton bleached emails.

Probably no, considering that emails cannot be bleached. "Bleached" might be intended as a stand in for a series of verbs, such as "deleted", "wiped any trace of", or "attempted to wipe any trace of". Depending on the exact meaning of "bleached" this statement could be true or false. Because we can't know the intended meaning of "bleached", the truthfulness of this statement is unclear.

4. Hillary Clinton had Bill Clinton meet with Loretta Lynch.

Unproven. Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch did meet, but there is no evidence this happened on Hillary Clinton's request. The source of this claim is Donald Trump, but he himself was unsure at the time, and offered no evidence. His tweet was "Bill's meeting was probably initiated and demanded by Hillary,". This new information lacks the "probably" of his initial claim, so unless Trump gained additional information this is just a guess.

Implicit claims:

1. Hillary Clinton and/or affiliates destroyed phones with a hammer, thus destroying evidence.

This seems to be a misrepresentation of the fact that phones were destroyed after migrating data to a new phone, as outlined by BobTheAverage's answer. Destroying a device after migrating data is not usually destruction of evidence.

2. Hillary Clinton and/or affiliates deleted emails to destroy evidence.

Unproven, although debatable. The story about how some emails were deleted involves a sufficient amount of details and incompetence to be either completely believable or completely made up, depending on the observer's point of view.

3. Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch in order to successfully obstruct the email investigation.

The obstruction part is unproven, and the "successful" part seems to be false, considering that the way the investigation was conducted cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency with a reasonable level of confidence.

4. People who talk about obstruction of justice in the Trump case are Hillary Clinton supporters.

This is most likely false given that at least one poll claims a quarter of Republicans think Trump tried to obstruct or impede the Russia investigation.

5. If Hillary Clinton commits a crime, it is legal for Donald Trump to commit a similar crime.

This is false.

For completeness, let's also rate the claim this tweet responds to:

Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice in some of his interactions with James Comey.

Unproven, although debatable. If we assume Comey's account of the events is untrue then we can assume the claim is false. If we assume Comey's account of events is true, then it's a matter of which law professor you ask.

For a reference: **"_Classified IT storage media (e.g., hard drives) cannot be declassified by overwriting. Sanitization (which may destroy the usefulness of the media) or physical destruction is required for disposal._"**, ["Manual", Department of Defense (DoD)](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/520001_vol3.pdf) (2013) — Nat, Jun 18 '17 at 18:15
*"There are several claims to be addressed in that tweet"*, er... That's not true. The question specifically only asks about the physical destruction of electronic devices by (or on behalf of) Hillary Clinton. The implicit claim that this means she also obstructed justice should be addressed as well. All other claims should be removed because they are off-topic for this question/site, e.g. *"Hillary is crooked"*, *"Hillary bleached e-mails"*, etc. — Jordy, Jun 19 '17 at 09:25
@Jordy The claim is presented in the context of a tweet which contains several other claims, all of which are inaccurate. The inaccuracies of the other claims provide context for the specific claim the question asks about. I can see the benefits of a shorter more focused answer but that's not what this answer is. You could upvote BobTheAverage's answer or write one yourself, which I'd probably upvote. — Peter, Jun 19 '17 at 12:41
You continuously use phrases such as *"unclear"*, *"unproven"*, *"hard to prove"*, *"probably no"*, etc. I find it difficult to see how this shows that these claims are "inaccurate", nor do I feel that they provide relevant context to the rest of this answer. There is also no reason for me to write my own answer because between you and Bob, all parts are covered. My only concern is that this answer specifically covers too much (irrelevant) topics to the point that it's muddying the water. — Jordy, Jun 19 '17 at 13:11
@Nat How do you feel mentioning the DoD's manual for destroying classified storage media helps answer this question about Trump's tweet? — A Bailey, Jun 19 '17 at 17:57
@ABailey It was meant as a reference for the first implicit claim, to note that destroying hardware containing sensitive information is standard practice. — Nat, Jun 19 '17 at 18:26
FYI - the "bleaching" emails characterization probably came from a specific software tool that was used to wipe server drives - I'm not sure of its functionality beyond multiple-pass low-level formatting, but one tool used by her IT support providers was an app called "BleachBit." — PoloHoleSet, Jun 20 '17 at 19:15
How on earth does Trump claim that Clinton's commiting a crime entitles him to commit a crime? He's very clearly implying that what he is doing pales in comparison with what Clinton did (according to him). I see no way to translate that into "... so what I'm doing is legal." — sgf, Jun 20 '17 at 23:56
@sgf, exactly. Consider this: Trump is accused of obstruction because events happened that - at the very least - made it look like he obstructed justice. He then uses 140 characters or less to show how easy it is to present information in a misleading way by doing the same to HC. If you read the tweet thusly (like I did) then every implicit claim assumes too much because it is all about appearance rather than actual fact. — Jordy, Jun 21 '17 at 06:24

BobTheAverage · Answer 2 · 2017-06-16T16:46:34.767

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Yes. These FBI documents, released September 2, 2016, state that one of Clinton's aides smashed one or two blackberries with a hammer. From Document 1 page 9 of 47:

Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, often purchased replacement BlackBerry devices for Clinton during her tenure at State. Hanley recalled purchasing most of the BlackBerry devices for Clinton from AT&T stores located in the Washington, D.C. area. Whenever Clinton acquired new mobile devices, Cooper was responsible for setting up the new devices and syncing them to the server. Abedin, [REDACTED], and Hanley also assisted Clinton with setting up any new devices. According to Abedin, it was not uncommon for Clinton to use a new BlackBerry for a few days and then immediately switch it out for an older version with which she was more familiar. Clinton stated that when her BlackBerry device malfunctioned, her aides would assist her in obtaining a new BlackBerry, and, after moving to a new device, her old SIM cards were disposed of by her aides. Cooper advised he sometimes assisted users, including Clinton, when they obtained a new mobile device by helping them back up the data from the old device before transferring it to the new device and syncing the new device with Clinton's server. Abedin and Hanley indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device. Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton's old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.

This wired article discusses how this is not a good way to dispose of a phone that contains secret information. They suggested using a blender and fire.

edited Jun 16 '17 at 16:46

answered Jun 16 '17 at 15:44

BobTheAverage

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So just to be clear, the implication of the tweet that Hillary Clinton obstructed justice by destroying her old mobile phones with a hammer is false. She backed up the data onto new devices before destroying the old devices. – Kevin Fee Jun 16 '17 at 16:38
@KevinFee I think this implies that but does not provide hard evidence. – BobTheAverage Jun 16 '17 at 16:45
@DavidHammen Edited to point that out. However I kind of thought that was understood by anyone who has followed any of this controversy. – BobTheAverage Jun 16 '17 at 16:48
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@BobTheAverage - Since the questioner didn't know that ("This is the first I've heard of that and it sounds... suspicious"), it was worth adding that fact into your answer. – David Hammen Jun 16 '17 at 16:59
It's not clear that this is obstruction of justice as it hasn't been established that they did it for that purpose. – ventsyv Jun 16 '17 at 18:01
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It would be very worrisome if the Secretary of State threw away her phone *without* the data on it being physically destroyed. – gerrit Jun 16 '17 at 18:30
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@BobTheAverage I think it does provide evidence that she backed up the data, and thus the destruction of the device was the mere destruction of a *copy*. See the line "her aides would assist her...when they obtained a new mobile device by helping them back up the data from the old device before transferring it to the new device..." – Kevin Fee Jun 16 '17 at 20:33
@KevinFee I tried to avoid mentioning anything relating directly to obstruction of justice because that is out of the scope of the question. It is also a can of worms that I have no wish to open. I don't think the phone is really relevant to obstruction. – BobTheAverage Jun 16 '17 at 21:53
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"yes" doesn't seem correct, given the rest of your answer. If we take the claim literal, it's not true. Clinton didn't destroy a phone, an aid did (it doesn't even sound as if the aid was following an order by Clinton, but just tried to get rid of old equipment). If we look at the implied claim (Clinton had a phone destroyed to get rid of evidence), it's also not true, as the data was backed up. There is just no reasonable way to look at this claim and say that it is correct. – tim Jun 17 '17 at 10:27
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**"_This wired article discusses how this is not a good way to dispose of a phone that contains secret information._"** The Wired article actually says that smashing is an effective disposal method, so long as you're sure to get the storage component. In practice, driving a nail through with a hammer's a popular choice. – Nat Jun 18 '17 at 18:29