By her own admission, Clinton destroyed more than 30,000 emails once the subpoenas started coming in. She claims she only destroyed personal records. Team Clinton initially explained her work emails were separated from her personal emails using keyword searches. Now, Clinton is insisting every email was individually read before the deletion.
Still, this leaves questions unanswered. How did those reviewing the emails define “personal”? If Clinton had emailed a foreign government about a donation to the Clinton Foundation, was that message — whatever its interest to watchdogs or voters — tossed in the trash bin?
According to the law, no one has to use email, but it is a crime (18 U.S.C. Section 1519) to destroy even one message to prevent it from being subpoenaed. As T. Markus Funk explained in a journal article for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, prosecutors charging someone with obstruction “need only prove that the defendant shredded the documents, at least in part, to make life more difficult for future investigators, if and when they eventually appear.”
Legal commentators call this “anticipatory obstruction of justice,” and the law punishes it with as much as 20 years imprisonment. The burden of proof is light. The Justice Department manual advises Section 1519 makes prosecution much easier because it covers “any matters” or “ ‘in relation to or contemplation of’ any matters.” It adds, “No corrupt persuasion is required.”