Comments (11)

FMArouet wrote on March 15, 2007 9:23 AM:

Question: If the DOJ and White House have willingly released this sheaf of embarrassing e-mails, where is the arsenal of smoking gun e-mails that they are trying to shield from scrutiny?

Citizen 92 wrote on March 15, 2007 10:08 AM:

Those, my friend, are cached behind various non-governmental e-mail accounts that WH staffers apparently use to hide government records.

There's an unfolding story about the gwb43.com domain, used by the White House, but owned by the RNC.

So far there have been a few mentions, most notably in Dan Froomkin's column yesterday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

It was also an AP item.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/14/ap3514157.html

Look for more on this.

Richard L. Adlof wrote on March 15, 2007 10:32 AM:

The Senate/House needed to ask for and receive the entire Human Resource file for all the US Attorneys first thing outta chute.

It may take a little while but the Radical Right really love wholesale revising history.

The e-mails released have the flavor of someone covertly doing the right thing under the cover making a misstake under pressure. Which disgruntled secretary sealed the envelope?

Arkansan wrote on March 15, 2007 10:36 AM:

Any theories as to why they used those GOP email addresses? It seems rather ham fisted, unless there is some way they can be sure that they can be permanently erased, but why would they think that?

Citizen 92 wrote on March 15, 2007 11:09 AM:

Arkansan -

Anything sent through the White House email server (actual name is who.eop.gov) would be automatically archived. It's part of the requirement of the Presidential Records Act (PRA). At the end of the President's term, then, all records, including the e-mail communication records, are transferred to the National Archives and eventually to a Presidential library for scholarly research.

Using an email server other than who.eop.gov would send the records outside of the system, ensuring they would not be captured and archived.

This is attractive for two reasons:
1/With no complete record, the emails will not be disclosed when/if White House files are subpoenaed

2/No incriminating records will be transferred to a Presidential library because they were never captured. Hence, effectively removing the evidence down the memory hole.

It would be a whole lot harder to retrieve records from whatever external email accounts being used because - you'd first have to find them (and there are probably many)and you'd have to somehow put together a record (ISP's don't maintain email files after a certain date). A whole lot more challenging than going down to the White House file room to get the archives.

What's even more damning is that former Congressman Dan Burton berated the Clinton administration for a faulty archiving system when he was doing the Monica and other investigations.

The end result was that millions were put into the eop.gov system to make it work -- and that system remains in the White House and is the permanent tech platform -- regardless of party.

(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/13/wh.email.ap/index.html)

Rove must've taken note.

There will be more on this.

Arkansan wrote on March 15, 2007 11:28 AM:

The phrase “obstruction of justice” just keeps popping up.

If they only used the outside servers when they were doing something shady, as is the case here, isn’t that some sort of secondary evidence of guilt?

Here in the south we take care of things like this the old fashioned way.

Recently, our outgoing governor Huckabee, physically destroyed (i.e., had someone go at them with a hammer) all the hard drives on all computers which were within his reach as he left office. He even commissioned the destruction of the hard drive on the computer at the airport where he used the state plane as his personal fun jet. He also misappropriated state funds to destroy the computers, he even stole the furniture, but I digress.

The point is, the state AG system here is weak, so if the local AG had an interest in prosecution (he doesn’t) he likely wouldn’t have the authority. There were probably some federal crimes, income tax evasion for example, and since Huckabee stole the use of the state plane to pursue his presidential ambitions, some federal campaign laws were almost certainly violated, but we now have a USA would never dream of exploring the crimes.

It makes me wonder whether Griffin wasn’t appointed as much to chase Hillary rumors as to protect the Republican Huckabee from accountability. Efficiency.

Arkansan wrote on March 15, 2007 11:40 AM:

If anyone is interested in the Huckabee story a place to start is here:

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/billikenman/2007/02/hard_drive_hard_luck.aspx

Interestingly, when Rove was here last week he was asked about Huckabee’s presidential prospects. Rove dodged that question, and talked about how much he enjoyed watching movies on planes with the Huckster’s wife. I wonder on whose plane they traveled?

BenL wrote on March 15, 2007 11:59 AM:

This administration has always had an eye on email communications. Take this transcript from Bill Moyers' Secret Government special.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_secretgov.html

President BUSH: "I'll give you one area, though, where I'm very cautious and that's about e-mailing. I used to be an avid e-mailer. And I e-mailed to my daughters or e-mailed to my father. And I don't want those e-mails to be in the public domain. So I don't e-mail any more. Out of concern for freedom of information laws, but also concern for my privacy. And, uh, but we'll cooperate with the press unless we think it's a matter of national security or something that's entirely private."

bob wrote on March 15, 2007 12:06 PM:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070314/pl_nm/congress_bush_secrecy_dc;_ylt=Aq8i_AZ0o7tAFS3KVvqmqWKWwvIE

Looks liek the Dems are finally getting qaournd to those pesky executive orders allowing bushco's docs to remain secret forever.

my word is 'linen'

Chris wrote on March 15, 2007 12:40 PM:

I don't think that the "performance problems" ever meant that they did a poor job. I think it meant they did too good of a job.

Eric Stepp wrote on March 15, 2007 3:40 PM:

I think what worries me most are all the other methods of e-mailing outside the who.eop.gov domain. Not only are there web-based e-mails such as Gmail, Hotmail, etc; but there are also anonymous re-mailers that strip all sender information.

Although anonymous remailers are ultimately traceable, one would have to know for certainty what to look for.