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?
There are several claims to be addressed in that tweet:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is false.
For completeness, let's also rate the claim this tweet responds to:
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.
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.
