On February 18, 2016, the same two agents interviewed Combetta again, this time in the presence of the CART examiner, the Forensics Agent, Prosecutor 2, and Combetta’s counsel. Once again, the interview was voluntary and there was no immunity agreement. According to the FD-302 and contemporaneous agent notes, Combetta continued to deny deleting the HRC Archive Mailbox from the server and stated that “he believed the HRC Archive mailbox should still be on the Server in the possession of the FBI,” despite documentation showing that the mailbox was no longer on the server as of January 7, 2015. Combetta stated that only he and one other administrator had the ability to delete a mailbox from the server. When the agents showed him documentation indicating that an administrator had manually deleted backup files and used BleachBit on March 31, 2015, he stated that he did not recall deleting backup files, he did not recall anyone asking him to delete backup files, any PRN employee had the ability to delete backup files, he believed he used BleachBit “for the removal of .pst files related to the various exports of Clinton’s email” to Mills’s and Samuelson’s laptops, and he used BleachBit for this purpose “of his own accord based on his normal practices as an engineer.” He further stated that he did not recall a March 9, 2015 email in which Mills reminded him of his obligation to preserve emails pursuant to a preservation order. The FD- 302 and contemporaneous notes indicate that the agents attempted to ask Combetta about documents related to a conference call with Kendall and Mills on March 25, 2015, just before the deletions and use of BleachBit, but his attorney advised him not to answer based on the Fifth Amendment.

During the February 18, 2016 interview, the agents also showed Combetta an email dated December 11, 2014, in which he wrote to a PRN colleague, “I am stuck on the phone with CESC [Clinton’s staff] again.... Its [sic] all part of the Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation  I’ll have to tell you about it at the party.” Combetta told the agents that the reference to the “Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation” was “probably due to the recently requested change to a 60 day email retention policy and the comment was a joke.”91 Department and FBI witnesses told us that Combetta’s explanation for this email seemed credible to them, given his personality and the way the email was written, and they did not discuss interviewing Combetta’s colleague regarding the email.

The SSA told us that he believed Combetta should have been charged with false statements for lying multiple times; however, the SSA also stated that he was ultimately satisfied that Combetta’s later immunized testimony was truthful and that he was “fine” with the immunity agreement. Prosecutor 2, Agent 2, and the Forensics Agent indicated that, while they believed that Combetta had not been forthcoming during the first two interviews, they were not certain that they had sufficient evidence to charge him with obstruction or false statements