update-1Update to clarify the context of the FBI release from Katica, the internet researcher who discovered the documents:

(Via Katica) Please keep in mind that this release was not a Sunday doc dump. It is still not on the FBI Vault site. https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton  And the FBI Vault Twitter account has not Tweeted it out. https://twitter.com/FBIRecordsVault  Nor has the FBI released a statement on it. I imagine they are freaking out right about now. I’m probably on a list for sure now and it isn’t for employment.
The document was only accessible from my archive.is link. Now that it has been shared a million or more times (lol) it is becoming searchable on Google. We have no idea if/when they were going to release it. The FBI has made no mention of the document as of yet either. I do hope that a news site does an article on that aspect of it.

comey-2As many of you are aware the FBI mysteriously dumped 300 pages of investigative material in an unusual Sunday evening upload.  For the sake of brevity we are calling it “a release”.
The timing and content of the FBI release are curious and a few people are attempting to understand what’s going on.
It has taken us a full day to look over the #5 release and scour it for information. There’s some rather interesting findings.
What follows below may possibly indicate a motive, and might also outline an internal effort within the FBI to push forward: a.) action by President Obama on behalf of Hillary Clinton, vis-a-vis a pardon; or, b.) action by the incoming administration to ensure  criminal charges.

Most of the MSM attention, scant though it is, has focused on the last few pages of the latest document release (pgs 295-299) which highlight specific evidence that Hillary Clinton was passing on classified information, via email, to Sidney Blumenthal.
Watch this interview with Lou Dobbs last night and Judge Andrew Napolitano:


In addition to the Sidney Blumenthal angle, the question posed by Lou Dobbs about FBI motive for uploading the documents is a dangling participle remaining from the discussion. However, within the release on Page #283 there’s an important discovery which may answer that question.
Bear with me, as I try to explain a complex issue.
As outlined by the research group behind the Thompson Timeline, there’s always been a question about a missing “Seagate Hard drive“.

March 2009—June 2011:An external hard drive backs up the data on Clinton’s private server, but it is unclear what happens to it or its replacement.
When Clinton’s first server is upgraded with a new server in March 2009, a Seagate external hard drive is attached to the server to store back-up copies of all of its data.
Bryan Pagliano, who manages the server at the time, will later tell the FBI that daily changes are backed up onto the hard drive every day, and a complete back-up is made once a week. As space on the hard drive runs out, backups are deleted on a “first in, first out” basis.
This continues until June 2011. That month, Pagliano travels from Washington, DC, where he works in the State Department, and goes to where the server is, in Chappaqua, New York. Pagliano replaces the Seagate external hard drive with a Cisco Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, also to store backups of the server.
[…]  It is unclear what becomes of either back-up device or the data they contained. The FBI’s September 2016 final report on the Clinton email investigation will only mention: “The FBI was unable to forensically determine how frequently the NAS captured backups of the Pagliano Server.”
But the report will also complain about the “FBI’s inability to recover all server equipment,” and there will be no mention of any data recovered from either back-up device.
[…] Also in September 2016, Justin Cooper, who helped Pagliano manage the server, will be asked about these hard drives at a Congressional hearing. He will say he only heard about them from reading the FBI final report. (link)

Please re-read that excerpt a few times, or go to the original source to read the full article.
[Research Note: Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, but the actual govt link to the FBI report -pdf attached to the information described above in the Thompson Timeline- is now dead (see here).  Fortunately, CTH always uploads these sensitive releases to alternate pdf hosting on SCRIBD.  So, we are able to go back and look at information independently.]
The Final Report” – When the original 47 page FBI investigative outline, immediately following the James Comey decision not to prosecute, was released there was a section about hardware retrieved by the FBI only AFTER they initially gained access to the server.
seagate-3

(Page #7 – FBI Release #1 Initial Investigative Report)

It should be alarming on it’s own that Clinton Lawyers didn’t tell FBI investigators of their volition they held additional email data storage devices.  The Clintons’, through their attorneys, gave the FBI the server in August 2015 – and not any additional data hardware until the FBI forensic investigation discovered there was additional hardware used.
Two months later, when confronted with that FBI forensic discovery, the Clinton’s, again through their lawyers, released more storage hardware.  This is where the Seagate Hard Drive comes in.
On page #5 of the First Investigative FBI report the Seagate Hard Drive is mentioned:
seagate-2-clinton-email

(Page #5 Link)

However, it should be noted that “footnote #58” assigned to the Seagate Hard Drive as mentioned, along with all other footnotes in the original FBI final report, IS REDACTED as released. 
To summarize so far:  The original September FBI final report, used by FBI Director Comey to justify his non finding of illegality, outlined mobile data storage devices -connected to the Clinton email set up- that were not voluntarily turned over to the FBI until evidence of their existence was determined by forensic examination.  AND the FBI reporting of those devices was opaquely revealed, with details redacted, in the final report itself.
Now we fast forward to last Sunday’s mysterious 300 page FBI release.
Along with 200+ pages of “Notice to Preserve Evidence” documentation, we find numerous pages outlining actual physical evidence retrieved.   Within those pages we find the following:
seagate-1-clinton-email

(Page #283 FBI Investigative Release #5)

There it is.  The mysterious missing Seagate Hard Drive appears; along with dozens of more exhibits of computers, servers, lap tops, thumb drives and portable storage devices gathered by the FBI and held as physical evidence.
The FBI has these devices in their custody.  They are not “missing“.
So why is this important?   Again, remember the original question: “what’s the motive behind the latest release/upload“?…
A reasonable case can be made that internal elements within the FBI are intentionally showing how much evidence there is to support the case against Hillary Clinton.  Evidence that was clearly never revealed as part of the original James Comey final public report.
Additionally, the questions expand:  Was Comey aware of that evidence? or was Comey’s determination and decision isolated away from that evidence by internal political elements favorable to the Clintons, who hid -albeit openly- some of the investigative material?
Continuing: Are there FBI White Hats beaconing to incoming administration?  ….and/or simultaneously notifying FBI Director Comey of additional knowledge they will not allow to remain hidden? ….and adding to that evidence file they release specific aspects proving Sidney Blumenthal was sent classified information to ensure the latest release cannot simply be brushed aside.
If I were a betting person, I’d say that’s the most likely scenario.  If that wasn’t the motive for this release there would have been no need for redactions -of this specific information- in the original FBI final report.
Essentially, if you connect these now visible dots, this mysterious release #5 is the story behind the redactions in the original September 2nd Comey final report. 
Some may argue an alternate motive might be to force the hand of Obama to grant a pardon for Secretary Clinton.  However, in the larger scheme of things that’s a moot point because a pardon implies the presence of guilt.
Accepting the way this has been done, it just doesn’t look like a release to force the hand of President Obama.  Again, this release is not a public records release announced by the FBI.  The ‘forced pardon’ motive/approach could much more easily be undertaken with a simple phone call to a back channel at the White House.
My hunch is, this latest release could be just as much news to FBI Director Comey as it is to us.
Denis McDonough

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