Tech who deleted Clinton’s e-mails was “joking” when he said “Hillary cover-up”

Here's the reddit thread where the tech is asking for help altering the email records: http://archive.is/NGGzn

I think the interesting part - the part that people focusing on it as evidence of an explicit coverup - is that the presumed motivation does not match the technical description of the problem and the tech's insistence that the emails be changed in the Exchange Database; and that indeed a user replying to him explained that no such functionality exists to alter the email records because quote "Having that functionality would create the ability to screw with discovery" and another "that's a possibility for a discovery nightmare."

They are of course referring to electronic discovery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery

"Electronic discovery (also E-discovery or ediscovery) refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format (often referred to as electronically stored information or ESI).[1] Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party."

Well, since he said he was joking, I guess there's nothing to this story then, right? /s

With all these stories what you believe or how serious you think it is (if you believe) depends on which party/candidate you support. The bar for "this is so obvious and simple and bad that I am changing my opinion of this person" is pretty high.

That said, I can't follow this story. The claim seems to be that they wanted to remove references to Hillary's new email address from old emails because that would somehow cause Outlook to give everyone who sent something to the old address, the new address?

And what are the anti Hillary people saying the intent was? What are they supposedly covering up?