Comments (53)

Rusty wrote on April 4, 2007 12:45 PM:

Yeah! Now we are cooking with gas. I hope I get a chance to shake Waxman's hand one day.

adilla wrote on April 4, 2007 12:54 PM:

Rove's people having used the RNC to send these e-mail correspondances, will probably make it easier for the Waxman to get his hands on them. Looks like Rove's political shop was too smart by half.

ChiTom wrote on April 4, 2007 1:00 PM:

Can the RNC refuse by pleading the 5th amendment? :)

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 1:01 PM:

We can all thank Alberto for the straw that broke that camel's back. It was his decision to release the initial DOJ e-mails (while Bush was traveling with his senior staff in South America) that brought the gwb43.com domain to light.

All of the other e-mail dumps were thoroughly vetted by the White House, and largely devoid of e-mail identifiers.

I hope that Waxman thanks Gonzales accordingly.

PMS wrote on April 4, 2007 1:02 PM:

Code word is "shame"... something GWB43.COM is completely unfamiliar with.

workaday joe wrote on April 4, 2007 1:06 PM:

Can the RNC just say something like, "We make it a policy to purge emails saved on our servers at 14-day intervals." If they wanted to purge emails on their own servers, I don't see what would stop them. They are a "private" institution and are not required to hang to things like internal communications right? What's the process when you're dealing with private institutions?

Rusty wrote on April 4, 2007 1:11 PM:

workaday joe,

Really purging a server is very complicated and takes a long time to do properly. The little little or no chance that the emails can be deleted from a variety of sources where they reside. I've also read that some of the servers belong to plain-jane hosting companies, who will not be keen to having their equipment impounded and searched. If the RNC doesn't want outside people scrubbing their servers for information they will offer up the emails. I can't wait for this document dump.

christomento wrote on April 4, 2007 1:14 PM:

Huge w00t to Big Hank

Security Code: Flower (the Skunk)

parrot wrote on April 4, 2007 1:17 PM:

Of course, obstruction would be a good charge for refusing to turn over the emails...made even more interesting by the fact that the emails should be turned over the day after Gonzalez testifies.

Ah, email and power--it is to be a two edged sword!

workaday joe wrote on April 4, 2007 1:19 PM:

Thanks, Rusty. I guess it comes down to who owns the servers and how much they want to slow things down versus just get on with their lives.

Also makes me think I should be more careful with my emails (and perhaps posting comments on blogs).

You know, I'm pretty new to the world of politics and didn't really even know anything about the Hatch Act until a few weeks ago. Makes me wonder how easy or difficult it may be to spin this story into a Democratic "fishing expedition". I mean, I guess I just sort of assumed that Karl Rove was spending his time figuring out how to put Federal dollars into the hands of folks who would help elect Republicans.

This could either go down as a nice Civics lesson or as a nasty shouting match between Al Franken and Sean Hannity. I'm putting my money on the shouting match.

parrot wrote on April 4, 2007 1:23 PM:

Scrubbing one's servers regularly to avoid detection of a crime would be conspiracy under the racketeering acts methinks. Thus, if they did this regularly to avoid detection of criminal activity then they could not use that as a defense...although it might make it harder to prosecute...or not because of all those outside saved emails.

Important people concerned about history always keep everything until it is untenable to keep it. Already Waxman has certain emails and now seeks all of them the easy way. Refusing to do so would be contempt of Congress in all likelihood. A long, hot summer awaits the RNC.

BronxInTN wrote on April 4, 2007 1:29 PM:

Regarding e-mail retention, at least for universities there are strict rules. These perhaps are enforceable via the usual mechanism of mandating cooperation by the university if it wishes to continue to receive research fund dollars. No major research university would forego such funds.

I am not sure of the exact details, or when the rules went into effect, but I may have heard of a 5 year retention period. There must also be good software for ferreting out particular e-mails (by sender/recipient, subject/title, dates, keywords?). Bottom line: if you are at a university and you delete an e-mail, don't think for an instant that the government will not be able to retrieve it upon request to the university administration.

I would be pretty sure that such strict rules don't apply to political parties, since Congress people would not intentionally want that kind of exposure. On the other hand, maybe one of Arlen Specter's staff inserted such a provision in the last Patriot Act revision.

Legalize wrote on April 4, 2007 1:36 PM:

"What's the process when you're dealing with private institutions?"

I don't know the technical requirements or wisdom of such a thing, but it is unlawful to dump documents in anticipation of litigation or discovery. Such an act can also be used as evidence of a conspiracy. And the dumping organization is kind of fucked because they've dumped everything that would mitigate harm to them, OR they've selectively dumped harmful documents, which itself is an act that can be used as evidence of conspiracy, obstruction, etc. Essentially a legal burden would shift to the organization to demonstrate that they DID NOT dump documents for improper purposes.

This isn't to say that it doesn't happen, but there's always evidence of it occuring; it's not difficult to subpoena IT folks for instance.

kis wrote on April 4, 2007 1:37 PM:

Most of the private companies I have worked for make it a policy that 1) email accounts can only consume x amount of storage before yo uhave to delete things, and 2) email servers are not part of a normal backup routine. The primary rationale is to limit discoverable material.

Now, with the right expertise, most erased/purged emails can be recovered. But they won't come up in a simple search. RNC can drag this out for awhile.

T. Scheisskopf wrote on April 4, 2007 1:38 PM:

Dear Cong. Waxman:

Knoxville TN. That's where you might find some real meat 'n taters.

Be prepared for fun with computer hard drive forensics and picking around at the magnetic level.

B. Harris wrote on April 4, 2007 1:48 PM:

Fitzgerald needs to get ready. If Rove referenced Plame on any of these accounts and withheld them, then Fitzmas as envisioned may happen after all.
Waxman may eventually have to get into the guts of the RNC hard drives to pull up the scrubbed e-epistles.

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 1:52 PM:

Apart from a "normal" purge schedule - about which Mr. Rove undoubtedly had input - expect problems from framing requests with narrow language, like looking for e-mails "on Republican National Committee servers".

If the RNC uses an outside service, or an intervening dummy company, the WH and RNC will at least first argue those are not "their" servers. Even Mr. Sampson might call that distinction "artificial"; but Congress has to be smarter and use broader search language.

The WH will move heaven and earth to run out the clock and make this look like the proverbial "partisan fishing expedition", rather than a search for those who have broken federal law. Congress shouldn't make that easy, unless it is expressly to give the WH time so that it can change its mind before Congress lets loose with a whopper.

kis wrote on April 4, 2007 1:55 PM:

If the FBI/Fitzgerald asked the White House for all Plame related emails, and they scrubbed the emails of all gwb43 references to mask the fact that there might be another pool of emails to discover ... isn't that obstruction of justice?

CV wrote on April 4, 2007 1:55 PM:

It seems to me that the White House might argue that these sorts of messages still represent privileged internal communications, regardless of what server they reside on. Since they are so adept at redefining terms (like torture), I can imagine them saying that internal communications are defined by the parties that take part, not by the where the means to the communication reside (whether those means are AT&T, bicycle messenger, RNC servers or Servers-R-Us).

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 1:55 PM:

It doesn't matter whether they scrub the RNC servers or not. If any of those messages went over public lines or airwaves the secret rooms at the major telecoms all have copies. Just order the NSA to turn them over.

code: muscle (how appropriate)

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 2:18 PM:

all this and he is in Syria with NP too!

He's my hero

Ed wrote on April 4, 2007 2:28 PM:

If the RNC comes back with a "we don't have them" answer then Waxman will ask for all of their backup tapes and that they restore the missing messages. The RNC is likely to have internal documents like any other organization that specifies how data is to be retained. Federal discovery rules as laid out in Rule 26 may come into play. There can be serious sanctions for not following your own retention guidelines. In a political sense this is a no win for the RNC. Either they turn over the offending documents (and I suspect there will be a lot of them) or they say they didn't keep anything and they look like (rightly) that they are hiding information. It then brings up larger issues that relate to the 1978 Presidential Records act.

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 2:33 PM:

I would guess that special considerations attach to record keeping at US political parties. After all, we're not dealing with private corporations here. These are political organizations - the two largest in the US. And there aren't many others.

There are FEC reporting requirements. I would hazard there are other requirements.

And remember, the DNC had to hand over volumes of documents during Clinton. Waxman has already issued a preservation order. If the documents disappear after that point, then there will be a problem.

JT wrote on April 4, 2007 2:34 PM:

E-mail retention policies are highly business-specific, and depend mightily on resignation. Federal dollars and strong regulation go with higher obligation to retain e-mail, in general.

There are some pretty good ways to scrub data quite securely, but these would not be part of normal retention policies. And short of physical destruction of the hard drives, scrubbing isn't a 100% guarantee.

So we have two possibilities; first, there is an obligation to retain these e-mails, these guys are in real trouble. Either they deleted them - in which case forensics can recover them; or they scrubbed them - in which case they are up for obstruction charges; or, the e-mails are there and they are really screwed. The second possibility is that there is no obligation for the RNC to retain e-mails. If this is the case, you can count on a long, hard fight to keep e-mails from turning up. Success for the Democrats will be highly dependent on their willingness to be very swift and aggressive, and Republicans will be calling "fishing expedition" throughout. Even in this case, scrubbing or deleting e-mails outside of written policy carries a presumption of obstruction.

Punchy wrote on April 4, 2007 2:37 PM:

Who says they have to scrub these hard-drives? That crunching sound you hear are they drives themselves being compacted. Too expensive to replace, you say? 9 Billion Iraqi money "lost", I say.

$9 Bill will buy a lot of sparkling new, email-free hardware.

otob wrote on April 4, 2007 2:37 PM:

Any company that has a modern IT department no doubt has a retention policy that automatically gets rid of documents after a certain date. Depending on the sector, they are in some cases determined by statute.

However, the RNC was on notice to preserve emails as of last week, so I think that trumps their retention policy. I once worked at a company that had to hold on to emails and paper documents as part of an investigation, and the folks in IT took that very seriously. Perhaps more so than those in management.

I agree with the above comment - there are probably loopholes in that language that they are already trying to jump through.

kis wrote on April 4, 2007 2:44 PM:

"However, the RNC was on notice to preserve emails as of last week, so I think that trumps their retention policy."

These guys have had weeks (since the first DOJ document dump) of warning that this was coming. Even a 'normal' 2-week retention policy would have been sufficient, though I suspect more has taken place. Besides bad press and presumption of guilt, what could Waxman do if the RNC just happened to upgrade their hardware a few weeks ago and destroyed everything prior to his request?

bottom viewer wrote on April 4, 2007 2:52 PM:

Phishing or not if there is a pattern where official government communication was using private or partisan channels to avoid the open government laws than by all means phish. Certainly there is going to be scrubs but there are more than one way to phish. One can impound the hard drives of government computers and find remains of even deleted web emails. I insure you that unless Rove and his cronies have changed computers there is a trail.

And if they destroyed them that is obstruction

shg wrote on April 4, 2007 2:57 PM:

I'm not from California but I called Waxman's office in DC just to say how much I appreciate and support the work he is doing.

code: judge!

Threegoal wrote on April 4, 2007 3:05 PM:

And the snarky view is to ask our various spy agencies if they have been collecting them as part of their various forms of domestic snooping.

Don't you love the smell or irony any time of the day?

Mark Richards wrote on April 4, 2007 3:10 PM:

Workaday Joe writes:
"Can the RNC just say something like, "We make it a policy to purge emails saved on our servers at 14-day intervals." If they wanted to purge emails on their own servers, I don't see what would stop them. They are a "private" institution and are not required to hang to things like internal communications right? What's the process when you're dealing with private institutions?"

If the operation is at all professional, the entire server/s are backed up daily (incremental, with full backups weekly or monthly).

If, however, the setup was established to scrub the evidence by (lack of) virtue of a retention policy that omitted emails, the options are further limited. It also depends on what type of email system is in place. If ordinary POP, then when the client gets new mail it's usually removed from the server when downloaded to the client. If IMAP, the email is retained on the server, but it may be deleted by the client at any time.

I hope Waxman is getting some good technical advice, because the way he is proceeding may go nowhere. Waxman should reach the net out much further, to include all the *client* machines (laptops, workstations) used to access the account.

Although the emails may not be retained at the server, likely one or more of these criminals has traces on their workstations.

Whistler wrote on April 4, 2007 3:17 PM:

Wouldn't it be a kick if the Democrats already had a great deal of this stuff (e-mails, etc.) for months or longer; but quietly sat on it, and just didn't announce having any of it; and then later asked the Republicans to fork certain things over ... knowing full well what sort of "we're the law" types the Reps are -- which automatically means they'd make some attempt to pull an Ollie North, and fire up the virtual shredder? And, after letting them “shred” it all, to say “surprise” and prove it all, anyway.

Wouldn't it be doubly funny if they had all that very incriminating evidence, well in advance, by serving NSL's on IT people who manage servers that the messages passed through? (Keeping in mind that gag orders go with it.)

What a great "thou shalt not abuse your power" message THAT would be, for future leaders, tempted to ignore the Constitution? They’d have been bit by their own rules ... which never should have existed in the first place.

Read up on the "Ultra Secret" from WWII ... the Brits were able to read all of the Nazi's e-mail -- err, heavily encrypted communications! -- and then plan their strategy according to the personalities and politics involved. But the key was this: the Nazi’s could never suspect the Brits could read their messages, or they’d change the codes and procedures. Very interesting, possibly related stuff!

Sojourner wrote on April 4, 2007 3:29 PM:

With the requirements imposed on corporations by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and general audit requirements that force retention of electronic email, I would suspect that there is a trail of documents. Failure to back up servers and email is poor business planning.

As much as politicians would abhor having too much information available, I suspect that virtually anyone with an RNC email address is retaining communications in their personal email folders. One person mentioned above about company email inboxes being limited in size. That means that the email is still on the servers themselves. Most of the large email programs allow the users to create their own personal folders on their individual computers to which they can move their mail and get it off the server. On an Exchange system, it is called a PST file.

So, yes -- Rep. Waxman may have to issue a call for the actual computers and hard drives that Rove and others have in their possession in order to obtain the actual communications. I do not doubt that this will turn into a war of semantics...

If anyone on this blog has a contact in Mr. Waxman's office, it might be good to relay this information -- they may not think or know to ask.

donviti wrote on April 4, 2007 3:38 PM:

HOT DAMN!!!!

Can you imagine if we had a government that was actually accountable. For that matter could you imagine if we had 5 or 6 waxman's? Instead of a bunch of Specter's?

Man the middle class could actually break even

Nell wrote on April 4, 2007 3:55 PM:

There's a very interesting series of posts at Correntewire about the server companies employed by the RNC based in Chattanooga, including a recent, trip there that included Karl Rove. [ignore the ratfvcking aspect of the doctored photo of Rove and focus on the facts about the server companies.]

Definitely worth Waxman's committee's time...

http://www.correntewire.com/gwb43_com_for_dummies

Frederick wrote on April 4, 2007 3:58 PM:

I don't think Waxman would request the information with
out having certain individuals within the RNC or elsewhere ready to talk , not everyone can claim the 5th
to get out of spilling the beans on the RNC.

Randy wrote on April 4, 2007 4:00 PM:

As an investigator I was asked by an insurance copamy to determine if some very valuable data could be recovered from a fire damaged computer.

What I found is that anything every written to a hard drive is recoverable. Read again
ANYTHING is recoverable.

The moral is don't every put to a keyboard that you would not want to answer for in court.

Security Code: Sheep and Henry is having mutton for dinner

davcbr wrote on April 4, 2007 4:11 PM:

Something I don't think anybody has thought of: security. The White House servers are quite secure.
Anybody think that the RNC servers might have been a target for hackers who might not know what they have? Or maybe they do? Someone ought to plant this thought in Karl's brain and see what color his body turns.

dc

Jim wrote on April 4, 2007 4:19 PM:

I suggest that someone ask Scott Jennings to provide each of the instances he delivered that presentation.

Legalize wrote on April 4, 2007 4:23 PM:

"If the FBI/Fitzgerald asked the White House for all Plame related emails, and they scrubbed the emails of all gwb43 references to mask the fact that there might be another pool of emails to discover ... isn't that obstruction of justice?"

Ha, yeah. Among other things ;).

Peter Kohan wrote on April 4, 2007 4:25 PM:

What needs to be done is for Congress to address e-mail policy throughout all branches of government through binding legislation. It can't be left up to the whims of each Presidential Administration or government agency to set their own individual e-mail policies. There's waaaaaaay too much wiggle room there for bad actors to take advantage of loopholes (much as we're seeing now). There needs to be a blanket policy that makes sure all e-mails are codified, backed up and retained for examination.

And, while they're at it - they should also legislate any instant messaging privileges granted to federal employees, making sure there is ample back-up there.

If people work for branches of government they need to be held accountable for their actions and their words. Proper e-mail maintenance and storage is a crucial step towards that goal.

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 4:28 PM:

davcbr -

The White House is a huge target for foreign signals intelligence. I'm sure that hostile and friendly intelligence services alike have taken notice and spent some time probing around the various RNC domains to see what they can find.

One would assume, that is.

Michael Stevens wrote on April 4, 2007 6:25 PM:

Waxman needs to subpoena Research In Motion (RIM) for the Blackberry e-mail accounts. Almost all messages sent to and from Blackberry devices go through RIM's servers.

Additionally, Blackberry users often have their standard e-mail accounts forwarded to their Blackberry. So it's possible that *any* of the gwb43.com e-mails may have passed through RIM's Blackberry servers.

Bottom line: RIM may have a record of any e-mails that the people at gwb43.com "can't find".

bottom viewer wrote on April 4, 2007 6:49 PM:

I hope Waxman's staff is reading this and covering all bases.

Imagine the following. Waxman's committee discovers some emails and some destroyed or attempted...in those are emails that pertain to the Plame and other places....including other schemes and plans similar to DOJ...

now that is good phishing and intereting security code...safe...

chompiz wrote on April 4, 2007 8:46 PM:

It is very hard to delete hard data forever without hiring really expert IT personnel to do such task, as you know servers are "physical evidence" and only a few have access to paswords, keys, etc. and it shouldn't be a big deal to get the evidence,
what were these fools thinking?
there are going to be cookie crumbs everywhere and I don't think they can claim "executive privilege" with that!

starwheel wrote on April 4, 2007 8:57 PM:

And to think the President is criticizing the Democrats for going on "vacation".

Speaker Pelosi is trying to restore peace in the Middle East and Henry Waxman is continuing to peel the layers off the GOP corruption onion.

When Republicans go on vacation, they go on Abramoff sponsored golf junkets if they aren't pulling political stunts in warzones.

The Democrats are working for their salaries.

chompiz wrote on April 4, 2007 11:18 PM:

Bottom line:
They are between a rock and a hard place,
If they knowingly deleted the emails, that's a crime,
if they preserved them, they have to turn them over,
either way, they are toast.

The dumbasses did not use the white house servers, I don't see how they get out of this one.

Anonymous wrote on April 4, 2007 11:44 PM:

Code Word: bucket
As in, "Get me a bucket. I'm gonna puke."

Ethan Quern wrote on April 11, 2007 5:17 AM:

How striking that all the Repulithugs on this list all advocate one thing: trash the evidence!
If that isn't admittance of guilt, I don't know what is! Yes, let drag this out by all means, say until the summer of 2008? What a sorry day for America that the most accurate analogy with the government of the United States of America is with the Nazi Party of Germany! Shame, shame, shame on people who care more about the success of their political sports team than the integrity of the government of the country!

MJK229 wrote on April 11, 2007 10:40 PM:

And on 4/11/07 AP reports
"The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business."

Is the WH perhaps haunted by the ghost of Rosemary Woods?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Woods

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