> For that reason, Zilly said that when the case goes to trial he’ll instruct the jury that it may presume the text messages were detrimental to the city’s legal position and that there’s significant circumstantial evidence they were deleted intentionally.
This is a common and fitting, though usually devastating, sanction for spoliation of evidence.
I'm not sure what to think about that. Do you see it as a sign of corruption of the FBI in general, or of one official being paid by Russia-affiliated actors to look the other way?
How does it tie in with what we know about the pressure from the FBI's New York field office to reopen the HRC email investigation right before the 2016 election? Comey was pretty sure that they were going to leak to the press if he didn't speak out himself. That does seem indicative of a rogue agency, but not exactly one that is pro-Democratic or pro-Clinton.
Aside from apparently excusing evidence destruction, it's not even accurate.
The FBI agent in question was was taking bribes from Oleg Deripaska, not "from Russia". Deripaska paid Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, $10 million dollars and was receiving private briefings and confidential polling data from him. I really don't think it's a point in favor of "the FBI was out to get Trump" when one of the guys investigating the wrong-doing was being paid by one of the campaign's allies.
You're right! I'm sure readers of the parent poster appreciate the poster's completeness and their refusal to tell half truths as well as not omit details, so one can only conclude that its my manner of speaking which betrayed my class and thus the disapproval of the Oxford educated. The other one that gets me constantly is drapes instead of drapery.
this article is about a month old; the case recently settled [0] (at least, a preliminary notice of settlement was filed, it's not finalized yet, and none of the details are public)
it seems very likely that these sanctions convinced the city to settle instead of going to trial, or at a minimum forced them to settle for less favorable terms than they were hoping for.
To which side is it usually devastating? I would assume it would be for the destroyer of evidence, but maybe good lawyers can explain that away and seed sufficient doubt?
It's a terrible result for everyone, plaintiff, defendant and court.
Plaintiff because, culpable or not, those texts may be the best explanation for whatever happened. Losing them means they're framing their arguments a bit in the dark. It's easier to persuade if you land pretty close to an actual truth, and that's harder without complete discovery of executive communications.
For defendants, because the explanations are actually pretty plausible for a municipal IT operation, and it's dumb for big liability to ride on some stupid, irrelevant IT gaffe on some peripheral technology.
The court because there isn't a good answer and deciding big cases on questionable legal presumptions and fictions that themselves turn on irrelevant technical arcana-- these are the things people dislike about lawyers.
"the explanations are actually pretty plausible for a municipal IT operation"
Nah.
> The former mayor has offered a number of explanations for the missing messages, including that she dropped her phone in water, that she inadvertently changed the phone’s deletion settings and that “someone” set a new phone to delete messages older than 30 days, resulting in a rolling deletion of previous messages.
Individually, sure. Combined? That's an unlikely set of circumstances. This, too:
> The order notes that Best’s phone at some point was also set to delete text messages after a month, despite her obligation to keep them due to pending litigation. Zilly noted that the former chief apparently deleted more than 27,000 of those text messages by hand.
All this while subject to a litigation hold looks very bad. Letting them wiggle out of it would encourage such behavior in the future.
This is a common and fitting, though usually devastating, sanction for spoliation of evidence.