The software displays "* * *" when the comment is neither dead nor deleted, but the viewer doesn't have permission to see the text. The most common case* of this is when the commenter has 'delay' set to something more than 0 in their profile, and their delay period hasn't expired yet. That's why it goes away eventually. (Re 'delay', see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.)

You guys should really ask these questions in the right place! "possible cover-up", sheesh - I know it's fun to imagine sinister goings on but wouldn't you just rather find out?

* maybe the only case - it should maybe say [delayed] but I think there might be obscure corner cases

Edit: this is fixed now... I think.