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CREW Asks FBI to Probe Missing White House Emails
It's the burning question of the Bush Administration: malfeasance or incompetence? Did the White House just lose an untold number of emails because of their "primitive" archiving setup? Or is there something worse at play -- something criminal?
CREW, which has been pursuing a lawsuit over the lost emails, wants to know. And today the group wrote (pdf) FBI Director Robert Mueller to request that he investigate whether White House officials deleted emails relevant to the Valerie Plame investigation.
The complaint is based on evidence that "for the period September 30 through October 6, 2003, there were no e-mails for the entire Office of the Vice President on either the White House servers or on a back-up tape created on October 21, 2003, with the exception of e-mails that had not yet been erased from individual OVP employee mailboxes." Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales had notified all White House employees that the Department of Justice was investigating the Plame outing on September 30th.
In its release, CREW says that it doesn't have all that much confidence that the FBI will follow up. That's because of their experience with ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL): months before the scandal exploded, the group brought evidence to the FBI of Foley's inappropriate advances toward male House pages. The FBI did not open an investigation, but when the scandal broke, unnamed FBI officials were quoted claiming that was because CREW had withheld key evidence -- a claim that was later shown to be untrue.
Josh
Zachary
I have long wondered about Mueller. Something tells me he's the FBI's Gonzalez/Mukasey but just hasn't gotten any scrutiny yet.
March 12, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
About time. And they should get the archives of the NSA social driftnet taps as well.
March 12, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mueller is a team player. Until the coach(Bush) says "go in" he just twiddles his thumbs. They will use the excuse,"it's an election year." Using that to not embarrass the Bush administration any more than it already has been. If that's possible. "Has been." That's what I'm looking for. For the whole damn administration.
March 12, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no law that applies to the Executive Branch any longer. I admire CREW and such groups for their tenacity, but there is no law that applies to the Executive Branch.
Will any of these things be pursued after they leave office is the question. Congress may let things disappear just to move on, but groups like CREW may keep it up.
March 12, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will any of these things be pursued after they leave office is the question.
Are you kidding? Do you not expect a tsunami-like Wave of Pardon from Dubya when he leaves?
According to well-placed sources on hallucinatory drugs, it's gonna cover all political appointees for everything they've ever done, everything they might have done, and everything they might ever have thought of doing. And, of course, it'll cover the President himself.
Fugghedabout da courts. Dubya sez it's the executive branch's job to interpret the laws.
Billary McSame
March 12, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well you would think that the FBI would be more interested in Treasonous activities than they would be of Prostitution rings but after this weeks sex scandal I have little faith in the priorities of the FBI under President Bush's tenure. Two weeks ago we had Bush and his friends telling us if the Dem's in the house did not pass the Senate's telecom bill then we were all in danger as americans. Well one would think that if they were seriuos then the FBI would have to be working overtime trying to ensuire the security within this country. Obviously one of their priorities was also busting the prostitution ring which they did and protecting us from evil-doers, which I guess under their logic they did as well.
March 12, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I found something that may be important: There's a link between Miers law firm, the former owner of her house in Dallas. Depending on the weather, Miers may or may not be able to explain whether she did or didn't have an ongoing relationship with her former law firm. If you talk to her about her home, you'll get one answer; if you talk to her about WH email you may get another.
Her law firm has a software auditing capability. Based on the Rep. Waxan reviews into WH email retention problem, Miers as WH counsel would (apparently) have us believe that they in WH counsel's had "no idea" how to transfer emails from LotusNotes to MS Outlook.
However, if Miers wants us to believe that she's refusing to testify to "protect the conversations with the President," it appears her objective is to hide conversations with her law firm about home purchases, but alleged reckless advice on how to retain that data.
- Why didn't Miers, as WH counsel, rely on this known software auditing capability from her former law firm when overseeing plans to transfer, retain, and store WH emails?
- Why should we believe there was "no contact" bewteen Miers and her former law firm on any issue; yet, the former owner of her home is indirectly linked with her former law firm?
March 12, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The FBI will do whatever the White House tells it to. That's how people get busted by federal agents for prostitution while others are never charged for torture.
March 12, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Backwards, it seems?
Investigate Federal bureaus
Justice, Do !!
Agency Protects Environment
March 12, 2008 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
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March 13, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not clear why this is even a post....some organization wrote a letter. Big Deal.
March 18, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink