Comments (61)

TheraP wrote on January 16, 2008 11:50 AM:

Quoting my 90 year old (lifelong repub) father, re bush: "That man should be hung by the testicles!"

brian wrote on January 16, 2008 11:52 AM:

This White House obeyed a court order ?!?

Drinks all around !

Oh, wait - it's a LIE. There we go.

Of course it is yet another LIE that they do not have the e-mails. They were destroyed ... all burned up in that awful fire.

Mr. Purple wrote on January 16, 2008 11:55 AM:

Bush 2.0's use of the Theory of Unitary Executive has been so grossly abused and this is just another example of such abuse and illegal action taken by them to cover their tracks.

Mr. Purple
www.mrpurple2008.com

Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 11:56 AM:

Plain and simple here.

The tapes are under a preservation order. Now with this admission of guilt, the courts should be allowed to select and investigator to go in and look at the White House IT infrastructure to verify the claims.

Because the White House defied the court order.

C92 wrote on January 16, 2008 11:56 AM:

What it comes down to really is this:

The Presidential Records Act was passed by Congress in the 1970’s. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all followed it.

But the present Administration (Cheney/Addington) believe that Congress cannot pass laws that affect the Executive Branch in any way, so they have chosen to ignore that law.

Cheney and Addington don’t want to have to make that argument in the open (since it’s laughable) so they’ve been delaying, stonewalling, etc.

Alguien wrote on January 16, 2008 12:07 PM:

C92 wrote on January 16, 2008 11:56 AM:

"What it comes down to really is this:
The Presidential Records Act was passed by Congress in the 1970’s. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all followed it. But the present Administration (Cheney/Addington) believes that Congress cannot pass laws that affect the Executive Branch in any way, so they have chosen to ignore that law."

C92: You are absolutely right. Furthermore, we need to keep in mind that, as Dana Perino announced a few months ago: "The VP is NOT part of the Executive Branch because he is also the President of the Senate."
In other words, the rules that may apply to Bush do NOT apply to Cheney.
How is that for LAUGHABLE?

InMaine wrote on January 16, 2008 12:07 PM:

What about the people the emails were sent TO? I mean get the list from the cc and bcc and backtrack to them. Them get further recipients from their cc and bcc lists.

They are doing this to US with the three deep FISA wiretapping by their tapping the lines of people talking to the people talking to the "terrorists", why can't we do the same?

Now it is not just getting the "smoking gun" on GW it is about preserving the national historical data. Maybe if we get the talk off politics and onto the "preservation" of history we will be able to get some traction on tracking down this administrations crimes.

Charlie Riley wrote on January 16, 2008 12:07 PM:

" Industry best practices". Is that codified in federal law? When being investigated it's ok to wipe tapes in the interest of following "industries best practices"?

Of course, we are all supposed to accept this without any official review by computer technologists appointed by the court. We know the Administration never lies.

theWalrus wrote on January 16, 2008 12:08 PM:

Massive violations of the Hatch Act.

Massive violations of the Presidential Records Act.

Massive violations of FISA laws...

...and Congress wants to investigate ballplayers.

Angry Vet wrote on January 16, 2008 12:11 PM:

The one time the Bush Administration pursues an environmentally friendly agenda....

Is that surprising?

bibimimi wrote on January 16, 2008 12:16 PM:

"consistent with industry best practices"

But this isn't a business, it's the government.

Criminal in thought and deed.

chabuka wrote on January 16, 2008 12:20 PM:

What god awful slime, the MSM has "monkey poxed" us with....and they are on their way to sticking us with another "troll administstration", complete with twisted souls and black hearts

Michael A wrote on January 16, 2008 12:22 PM:

These e-mails are not lost forever. They are still on multiple outside servers that handled the traffic. Leahey pointed that out last year. They just need to get on the gd ball and find those gd e-mails. Every day that passes makes it more likely that they will get saved over and lost. F'n get moving morons.

Nina Katarina wrote on January 16, 2008 12:25 PM:

Did they hire Rose Mary Woods to work their computer center?

jolly ranchero wrote on January 16, 2008 12:27 PM:

Anyone want to wager that come around December of 2008, suddenly ALL email tapes will have been "mistakenly" rewritten?

By the way, can the judge demand these tapes, to verify the WH claim? First they said lost, now they say overwritten. What's next?

BlueInTexas wrote on January 16, 2008 12:31 PM:

Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide.

I'm afraid that's true. It's the deletion and obfuscation of the emails that is the crime, not the re-use of backup tapes.

The loss of the backup tapes simply contribute to the futility of recovering that data through the official channels. The same channels that sought to hide the evidence in the first place.

We now have the technology, however, to have a $200 hard drive backup copy made and stored on a daily basis, representing a freeze-frame of each days activity at the White House and archived for all time. Congress should look at implementing such an archival method as soon as possible. (Following impeachment proceedings)

OxyCon wrote on January 16, 2008 12:38 PM:

If those email tapes were merely reused, as the article states, then all of the previous data (i.e. evidence) is still retrievable from the tapes.
You have to overwrite data at least three times in order to potentially destroy it. The Mil-Spec for data destruction is overwriting data seven times.

huh? wrote on January 16, 2008 12:40 PM:

Is this the first time in two terms that the Bush Administration has supported recycling?

Guess he really is the environmental president.

JohnW1141 wrote on January 16, 2008 12:41 PM:

The Bush gang knows they can do whatever they want with impunity. The Republican Congress went along, and the Democratic Congress is just a bunch of enabling windbags.

too funny wrote on January 16, 2008 12:42 PM:

stop it. that's too funny. You just made me spit out my coffee.

Andrew wrote on January 16, 2008 12:43 PM:

The e-mails traffic is not lost forever and it is beyond dumb to say that in this technologiccal day and age. There were plenty of servers that "received" these e-mails on the other end and the Congress would be truely spineless and derelict in their duty in not persuing capturing this information. Is this story being spun for the benefit of an already dumbed down society?

Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 12:45 PM:

"consistent with industry best practices"

The United States of America is not an industry.

dixiegrl wrote on January 16, 2008 12:45 PM:

The WH AND the Gov. of Missouri both reported to be destroying e-mails and records.
Wonder what other states are also doing this????????

senilebiker wrote on January 16, 2008 12:45 PM:

The noose is tightening

As several posters have said, this is a clear violation of several laws, which clearly indicates that the White House is incapable of managing itself. This allows for congress to impose some kind of external verification/ examination.

Bring on a special prosecutor to investigate this "egregious" violation, and have the powers to drill down throught the second level/third level/fourth level data stores, such as the RNC servers, hard drives off PC's ISP servers etc.

The water is swirling around the drain, and hopefully the a**holes get washed away with it.

Phil wrote on January 16, 2008 12:48 PM:

Give em to the FBI and CIA. They can retrieve "written over" data off of backup tapes.

fj wrote on January 16, 2008 12:48 PM:

Recycling 2-year old tapes is an "industry best practice"? My company would get destroyed by the SEC and DoJ if they did that.

I am so sick of these crooks.

foggylady wrote on January 16, 2008 12:49 PM:

Gotta give the Administration credit..
they have elevated passive/aggressive behavior to a new level.
Seems to be working for them so far, too.

Mike H wrote on January 16, 2008 12:52 PM:

How many more suggestions of obstruction of justice does the Congress need before they decide VP impeachment proceedings are warranted? Because don't tell me that Addington and Cheney weren't intimately involved in all decisions

Is it really a coincidence that the backup tapes AND the e-mails AND the videotapes were all destroyed?

I've been giving Pelosi a grudging pass on this to date, but this is the last straw.

Alan Ross wrote on January 16, 2008 12:52 PM:

In my world, this is known as spoliation -- destruction of evidence relevant to an active investigation. It's subject to civil penalties and criminal prosecution.

Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 12:57 PM:

The White House security office is responsible for the tapes and that is
Director of the White House Security Office, James Knodell.

GMFORD wrote on January 16, 2008 12:59 PM:

So the WH defense for breaking the law(s) is 'Oops, my bad'.

If that defense works, then there is a gaping loophole in existing law(s) that needs to be fixed. Is the law too vague, does it not have a specific remedy if broken? Does it allow the WH to pass the buck to technicians?

Just wondering.

clio wrote on January 16, 2008 1:07 PM:

Congress...spineless and derelict in their duty...
You got it!

Is this story being spun for the benefit of an already dumbed down society?

Not exactly. The dumbed down society is in the White House. It becomes clearer every day that this administration is stuck in the 1960's and really, really doesn't understand technological advances that have occurred since then.

I hope Congress is more technologically savvy, but I'm not holding my breath.

BBpd wrote on January 16, 2008 1:16 PM:

I feel like we've become completely inured to the fact that the country is being run by a band of criminals. No one will be held accountable for this. No one will be punished. The idea that there are any sorts of checks on individual members of the Exec. Branch has become laughable.

Even if wingnuts argue (dishonestly) that Bush hasn't done anything illegal, they have to admit that he's laid out a perfect template for future presidents of how they can commit crimes and never have to answer for them in any way. Refuse to speak to Congress, distroy documentation, dangle pardons over your stooges if they keep their traps shut. Disgusting.

mo2 wrote on January 16, 2008 1:16 PM:

The article says the important time periods are March - October 2003, but I think that November - December 2002 is when Cheney was busy squelching the Intelligence Community's belief that the Niger aluminum tube stories were not true and possibly even forgeries.

It is this time period that Cheney prevented the Intelligence Community from telling Bush that the documents were forgeries so that the 16 words got into the State of the Union Address.

This is why Joe Wilson was sent to Niger -- this is the time period that put the Plame Outing into motion. This is what Cheney HAD to hide. Cheney did not out Plame because his ego was hurt by Wilson's op-ed.

Mark F wrote on January 16, 2008 1:19 PM:

Those backup tapes are expensive. I'm glad the White House is determined to save the American taxpayer the extreme burden of paying for all the extra tapes that would have been needed if they hadn't recycled the old ones. George W. Bush is always just lookin' out for the little guy...

thomas wrote on January 16, 2008 1:31 PM:

"industries best pracitce"

Can you imagine if industry was run like these guys run government?

Oops, I forgot. Shrub did run his companies like he's run the government.

EH wrote on January 16, 2008 1:34 PM:

I bet if there was kiddie porn on those tapes they'd be able to recover the data from them.

That said, their rationale completely glosses over or ignores the common practice of having monthly or yearly tapes that never get overwritten, they just go into a vault in case something comes up. This is standard, even in small companies.

Christy wrote on January 16, 2008 1:39 PM:

The ISP's probably have them. AND Bush's spying programs almost certainly have them.

C92 wrote on January 16, 2008 1:43 PM:

TWO EMAIL SCANDALS HERE. And this is the minor one.

All the really good stuff was sent through outside RNC email accounts. The ones that Karl Rove and other senior staffers used exclusively. Those are still locked up at the RNC and in the White House Counsel's office.

This "official" email scandal will be an effective wedge into breaking into that scandal. I doubt that anyone ever used the official eop.gov system for incriminating work.

Remember it was Susan Ralston, Karl Rove's assistant, who said it best while writing to Jack Abramoff:

“I now have an RNC blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email.”

Oh, and a quick shoutout to Alberto Gonzales, who, about a year ago, precipitated this whole email mess while his boss was in South America. (Bush told him to "deal with" the US Attorneys - and this is what we got!)

J.Irons wrote on January 16, 2008 1:44 PM:

Harry and Nancy, send that lying sack of shit a strongly worded letter.

CranialRectalLoopback wrote on January 16, 2008 1:46 PM:

Just waterboard the fucking President.

pseudonymous in nc wrote on January 16, 2008 2:00 PM:

This is bullshit, of course. (As if the Bush Administration would voluntarily recycle.)

And don't forget the RNC mail servers, where Unka Karl and co. worked off the books.

So, we have prima facie violations of the Presidential Records Act. What are Harry and Nancy going to do about it?

Stuart Eugene Thiel wrote on January 16, 2008 2:11 PM:

Alan Ross mentioned spoliation (destruction of evidence) as leading to direct penalties. Well, the Bushies aren't going to worry about any fines. But it also means that the missing evidence is presumed to be as damning as possible. Piper Aircraft got reamed 20 years back for destroying records.

This is something blogs should be screaming; not the whiny, "oh it must have been bad stuff," but rather "in the Anglo-American legal tradition, wilfull destruction of evidence creates the presumption that the evidence was VERY BAD STUFF."

Ji wrote on January 16, 2008 2:12 PM:

Absolutely disgusting. Where's the accountability? WTF

Alguien wrote on January 16, 2008 2:14 PM:

CranialRectalLoopback wrote on January 16, 2008 1:46 PM:
"Just waterboard the fucking President."

And the f... Vicepresident, and his f... chief of staff and their f... legal counsels, and the AG, and the former AG, and..., and...and...all the way down to Barney, the dog!!!

UNBELIEVABLE!

Jeff wrote on January 16, 2008 2:49 PM:

WHY is Congress not demanding a special prosecutor be appointed???? This is criminal destruction of evidence. Get with the program, Congress!!!!

Damiana wrote on January 16, 2008 2:55 PM:

Has anyone asked the NSA if *they* might have copies of any of those emails? After all, wasn't it clear back in 2001 that they started (illegally) intercepting all the data going across AT&T's lines, which is, well, pretty much everything?

Even if that wouldn't catch anything sent internally, it would almost certainly have caught up all those mails Karl Rove etc. sent using their republican party email accounts.

KilgoreTrout XL wrote on January 16, 2008 3:00 PM:

This is really no problem- you can easily retrieve the information from those backup tapes as well as from any internal server in the POTUS network.

Hopefully "intent to destroy" is still a crime under the act, of course (probably is.)

thepeoplechoose wrote on January 16, 2008 3:10 PM:

How many laws does Bush have to break before Pelosi gets a pair and initiates impeachment hearings? And I could care less that there aren't sufficient numbers in the senate to get it done. All that does is make all republican congresspersons party to the criminal activity. Not to mention that the constitution doesn't make any reference to political parties re: the power to impeach. All we get from the WH and congress is lame excuses for not performing their duties as required by statute. We have to listen to crap about baseball while the highest officials of our government commit unspeakable acts against our country. And our democratic lawmakers are just waiting their turn to pick our pockets is why they refuse to do anything about this. We don't have a single elected official who gives a hoot about our laws. If they did and they had the slightest intention of fulfilling their oath of office things would be very different. They're all scum. Every one. They've made the idea of going to the polls to cast your ballot a laughingstock. Even though it was wrong, at least the repugs had the balls to go after Clinton. The present crew of dems don't have a hair on their collective ass.

Clay wrote on January 16, 2008 3:59 PM:

What did the WH mean by "recycle?" I am betting that the tapes were subjected to a magnetic field sufficient to delete all trace recordings and then shredded and "recycled" in a million pieces.

gandhi wrote on January 16, 2008 4:28 PM:

Is it impeachment time yet? No? No?

Andrew wrote on January 16, 2008 5:03 PM:

When all else fails, it's time to warm up ones computers for blasting e-mails as well as faxes to Conyers and Leahy. We had a senator with balls who was willing to and continues to fight for FISA in Chris Dodd, and these two men must be made aware of the outrage that is felt across the country with regard to this admiistrations continued asault on the rule of law.
The technology is there to capture this information from other sources and there is no other reason for the Judiciary Committee not to go after these people with a vengence other than the possibility that they themselves are being blackmailed in some way into not investigating these high crimes. Either this country stands for the rule of law or we are truely lost as a society.

johnnydoughey wrote on January 16, 2008 5:31 PM:

All this discussion is moot. It only applied when we had a democracy. If you notice, both the Democratic controlled and Republican controlled congresses have decided that the Executive branch is immune to all laws and jurisdictions.

"WE the People" are no more... IMHO

Mary wrote on January 16, 2008 6:33 PM:

I can't remember who said it first, but Barack Obama has used it frequently:

"The best disinfectant for corruption is sunshine."

Open government - web access to all government agencies - Pres. Obama will give TV addresses frequently (like fireside chats) to keep us abreast of what is going on. AND we will have 5 days to review laws awaiting his signature and be able to comment on them.

Lets move into the 21st century and stop this disgusting, unethical, dishonest, backdoor dealing and corrupt government from ever happening again.

Vote for the future - Vote Obama

Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 6:43 PM:

We've known since Fitzgerald's review of Rove's computer that there was problems with the WH archiving. Would be useful to review what problems were known; which software specifications were discussed; and which software products were identified that would meet the problems identified during the Fitzgerald investigation of the Plame-Name Outing.

- Which US government personnel knew of the problems with the software in the WH; but did not ensure the "new contract" included technical solutions to address the "archiving problems" the Grand Jury discovered;

- Why is this problem with WH e-mail archiving, regardless the software issues, not getting addressed using some sort of "backup to the failed backup";

- What was the plan OPM used to hire contractors and IT experts to transition the "bad" WH archiving system to a "better" one that did meet the legal requirements that were foreseeable, given the JAG-identified concerns in 2001 going forward that the ICC could adjudicate alleged war crimes;

- What summary can WH provide showing, after Fitzgerald's findings: [a] there was an understanding of the problems; [b] there was a review of the existing technical solutions; [c] there was a program manager assigned to identify a solution and implement a solution that met the legal requirements; and [d] there was a planned review to ensure the proposed plan, and implemented solution did address the foreseeable risks identified by Fitzgerald, and met the foreseeable legal interest of the ICC which the JAGs identified to DOJ OLC in 2001;

- Was here no consideration for the JAG-related concerns at the POW working group meetings to _modernize_ the archiving system in the WH to meet the foreseeable risk ICC or other international tribunals would want information about the "foreseeable torture" (court words, civil case, former Guantanamo POWs) at the hands of US personnel;

- What program reviews included, or should have included, the JAG Memoranda to DOJ OLC outlining the foreseeable risk that ICC and other international tribunals could prosecute US persons for alleged war crimes;

- Why was there funding set aside with the MCA to _defend_ US persons before international tribunals for war crimes; but there was allegedly no technical system in place to [a] meet that foreseeable risk the JAG identified; [b] fully preserve documents that legal counsel knew or should have known would substantially be likely subject to subpoena; and [c] there was no backup system to protect that "valuable" information needed to _defend_ those the MCA foresaw as being subject to war crimes prosecutions; and

- Was it the intent of the DoJ OLC and other legal counsel who wrote the MCA language granting funds for defendants before the international tribunals to have _no evidence_ and _no records_ from the White House; and how does this "foreseeable outcome" -- that of having a requirement to defend, but not evidence to defend -- reflect on the legal counsel who had a foreseeable duty to provide a fully defense to their clients and ensure the "needed evidence to provide a full defense" was available?

mehitabel wrote on January 16, 2008 8:50 PM:

Follow the money. Find out if new tapes were purchased/requisitioned and find out if there is a bill somewhere for storage.

Anonymous wrote on January 17, 2008 10:12 AM:

We still don't know the name of the private contractor running the White House IT account. The WH has been unwilling to provide that

Slippery Slope wrote on January 17, 2008 11:35 AM:

Is it possible that there is language in the service contract of the "private contractor [who is] running the White House IT account" that specifies that the contractor must be compliant with existing retention and security laws or could there be carve-outs exempting them from prosecution when following specific [contrary] directions from WH staff? If there are “exemptions”, who might have written such language into the contract and who might have given specific directions to not follow existing retention and or security laws?

Got Kids wrote on January 17, 2008 12:34 PM:

The White House maintained their back up files on the RNC servers which are equally unaccounted for. The hypocrisy of these people never ceases to amaze me. We can monitor your e-mail and phone conversations illegally and legally destroy our own records, or is it the other way around. Can someone get me Jon Yoo?

I hope the TV media coverage on this is poor today because it didn't go to print yet. You don't expect TV producers to research, source and report a story on their own do you? (With the exception of Keith Olberman.) Hope they get to this tomorrow. We'll see!

Got Kids wrote on January 17, 2008 12:35 PM:

The White House maintained their back up files on the RNC servers which are equally unaccounted for. The hypocrisy of these people never ceases to amaze me. We can monitor your e-mail and phone conversations illegally and legally destroy our own records, or is it the other way around. Can someone get me Jon Yoo?

I hope the TV media coverage on this is poor today because it didn't go to print yet. You don't expect TV producers to research, source and report a story on their own do you? (With the exception of Keith Olberman.) Hope they get to this tomorrow. We'll see!

osage wrote on January 18, 2008 12:54 PM:

REPUBLICANISM is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, with an emphasis on liberty, rule by the people, and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. Republicanism always stands in opposition to aristocracy, oligarchy, and dictatorship. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government. Or as John Adams put it, “They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” Much of the literature deals with the issue of what sort of values and behavior by the citizens is necessary if the republic is to survive and flourish; the emphasis has been on widespread citizen participation, civic virtue, and opposition to corruption.

As republicanism only stands in opposition to dictatorial authority, it is compatible with a constitutional monarch holding symbolic roles, such as in modern Britain, Canada and Japan.

Advocates of republicanism argue that it demands a citizenry that puts a premium on civil virtue and opposes corruption. Most authors argue that republicanism is incompatible with office holders using public power for personal gain.[1] Many dictatorships have called themselves "republics," but none ever protected liberty or the rights of their citizens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rep...i/ Republicanism