**Updated** Top Whitehouse aides try to skirt the system

[OrByte]

Its time to turn the Patriot Act loose on these criminals.

 

[eilute]

Hey, there's still 4 hours left before the tape backups get overwritten.

 

[Jadow]

Chuck Shumer: "There's ways to recover those emails. THey're on cookies, there's ways to get them."

r-tard

 

[ProfJohn]

Harvey, has anyone claimed that they were using outside e-mail accounts to hide criminal activities?

Get real.

They may have been trying to hide politically dangerous and questionable activities, but criminal? As far as I can tell this is a political scandal, not a criminal one.

 

[imported_Equinox]

Okay, here is a part that I have a tremendous problem with:

"White House staff is now being advised that if they question whether an e-mail is political or official, the staff should use their private accounts, but also preserve a copy to be sent to White House lawyers for a determination of whether the e-mail needs to be saved under the Presidential Records Act."

Are my tax dollars paying a lawyer to sift through Republican National Party email? Because if I am paying for this, I don't think I should be. I thought it was the responsibility of the political party foot the bill for their activities, not "The White House"

EDIT: It seemed such an interesting question, I decided to ask the Citizens Ethics Committee. I wonder how long it takes them to review things like that?

 

[imported_Equinox]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Harvey, has anyone claimed that they were using outside e-mail accounts to hide criminal activities?

Get real.

They may have been trying to hide politically dangerous and questionable activities, but criminal? As far as I can tell this is a political scandal, not a criminal one.

This became criminal once they broke the Presidential Records Act. You most certainly can go to jail for it. Destruction of evidence doesn't just get you censure; it can get you jailed.

 

[mendeh]

now the white house is claiming that even if they did have the emails they would be protected by executive privelege. :roll:

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: mendeh
now the white house is claiming that even if they did have the emails they would be protected by executive privelege. :roll:

But I thought that the original claim was that Bush didn't know or have any part in this? They can only claim EP if he was directly involved or informed.

So yet another change of story on their parts. I wish they would just subpoena Rove already and end this merry-go-round horseshite.

If there was ever a person that earned and deserves the nickname "Turdblossom" it is that fvcker.

 

[galperi1]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: mendeh
now the white house is claiming that even if they did have the emails they would be protected by executive privelege. :roll:

But I thought that the original claim was that Bush didn't know or have any part in this? They can only claim EP if he was directly involved or informed.

So yet another change of story on their parts. I wish they would just subpoena Rove already and end this merry-go-round horseshite.

If there was ever a person that earned and deserves the nickname "Turdblossom" it is that fvcker.

so.... let me see. If Bush was NOT involved and it was NOT official WH business, then I don't see how this could be covered under the PRA.

If they are saying that they can claim EP, does that not mean that it has to be official WH business? Which then leads you down the path as to why they would be sending e-mails using the RNC system and if that was the case... those are then covered by the PRA.

In the end, it seems like an end-run around the PRA which seems to be a violation of the law.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

Maybe Rove stuffed the documents down his pants.

That would be a prosecutable offense, wouldn't it? I know we'd all be outraged if we found out something like that had happened in recent history.

Oh Sandy...

The sole justification for every Republican cover up and obstruction of justice forever more.

Just like Clinton justifies their every wrong doing.

Good stalwart GOP'ers, whose variable morality is based solely on what they perceive anyone else has done.

This sure sounds like obstruction of justice to me.

I'm sure that the Attorney General will get to the bottom of this a prosecute all the guilty parties.

Oh, wait a minute...

...nevermind.

After this many incidences, it is hard to attribute more lost data to incompentant boobery.

Unfortunately, the responsible parties are more than likey hiding in the shadows of their soon-to-be scapegoats.

I can't wait for the MSM lapdog's reaction to this one...

it'll go something like this:

"Well, since there was nothing illegal or incriminating on those emails anyway, it's just not any big deal that they are missing. Nothing to see here, move along..."

Exactly how many times will further evidence of this administrations incompetence and/or corruption come to light before we pull the plug on this ongoing American disaster?

Any employee, and that is what Bush is, would have been fired long ago for such ongoing and repeated negligence. It's preposterous that we all sit around picking sides to "debate" if this or that was illegal or not. The evidence, both real and circumstantial, has mounted.

I wonder how far they could take the "it's not illegal, we're just really bad at this" defense.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: PrevaricatorJohn
Harvey, has anyone claimed that they were using outside e-mail accounts to hide criminal activities?

YES. Equinox posted the basic answer:

This became criminal once they broke the Presidential Records Act. You most certainly can go to jail for it. Destruction of evidence doesn't just get you censure; it can get you jailed.

Here's more info from the L.A. Times:

Party-issued laptops now a White House headache
Democrats say a private e-mail system was used in violation of federal rules.

By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
April 9, 2007

WASHINGTON ? When Karl Rove and his top deputies arrived at the White House in 2001, the Republican National Committee provided them with laptop computers and other communication devices to be used alongside their government-issued equipment.

The back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, was designed to avoid charges that had vexed the Clinton White House ? that federal resources were being used inappropriately for political campaign purposes.

Now, that dual computer system is creating new embarrassment and legal headaches for the White House, the Republican Party and Rove's once-vaunted White House operation.

Democrats say evidence suggests the RNC e-mail system was used for political and government policy matters in violation of federal record preservation and disclosure rules.

In addition, Democrats point to a handful of e-mails obtained through ongoing inquiries suggesting the system may have been used to conceal such activities as contacts with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was convicted on bribery charges and is now in prison for fraud.

Democratic congressional investigators are beginning to demand access to this RNC-White House communications system, which was used not only by Rove's office but by several top officials elsewhere in the White House.

The prospect that such communication might become public has further jangled the nerves of an already rattled Bush White House.

Some Republicans believe that the huge number of e-mails ? many written hastily, with no thought that they might become public ? may contain more detailed and unguarded inside information about the administration's far-flung political activities than has previously been available.

"There is concern about what may be in these e-mails," said one GOP activist who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"The system was created with the best intentions," said former Assistant White House Press Secretary Adam Levine, who was assigned an RNC laptop and BlackBerry when he worked at the White House in 2002. But, he added, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, last week formally requested access to broad categories of RNC-White House e-mails.

Waxman told the Los Angeles Times in a statement that a separate "e-mail system for high-ranking White House officials would raise serious questions about violations of the Presidential Records Act," which requires the preservation and ultimate disclosure of e-mails about official government business.

Waxman's initial request to the RNC seeks e-mails relating to the presentation of campaign polling and strategy information to Cabinet agency appointees. He is also expected to ask for e-mails relating to Abramoff's activities, which Waxman is also investigating.

The Senate and House Judiciary Committees are also expected to formally request e-mail records from the RNC that relate to last year's firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The private e-mail system came to light in the U.S. attorney controversy because one of Rove's deputies used an RNC-maintained e-mail domain ? gwb43.com ? to communicate with the Justice Department about replacing one of those prosecutors.

White House officials said the system had been used appropriately and was modeled after one used by the Clinton White House political office in the late 1990s.

"The regular staffers who interface with political organizations have a separate e-mail account, and that's entirely appropriate," said White House spokesman Scott M. Stanzel. "The practice is followed to avoid inadvertent violations of the law."

Stanzel said he did not know how many officials used the separate system. Another White House official called it "a handful."

Some Republican activists say the e-mail request will not create great difficulty for the White House because nothing nefarious happened and because the RNC automatically purges some e-mails after 30 days.

RNC officials are expected to meet with House Government Reform and Judiciary Committee lawyers as early as this week to discuss the first document request.

"We'd like to cooperate to whatever level is appropriate," Republican Party spokeswoman Lisa Camooso Miller said Friday.

Waxman focused on the e-mails after a hearing last month examining a presentation of campaign forecasts and polling data made by a Rove deputy to top appointed officials of the Government Services Administration, some of whom believed they were being instructed to help GOP candidates.

White House staff arranging for the GSA briefing by a Rove deputy, Scott Jennings, used the gwb43.com e-mail domain name. That caught the attention of Waxman's investigators, who had previously examined e-mails from Abramoff to Rove's executive assistant, Susan B. Ralston, to object to an impending Interior Department decision. The decision, he wrote, was "anathema to all our supporters it's important if possible to get some quiet message from the WH [White House] that this is absurd."

Ralston used outside accounts ? including at rnchq.org ? to communicate with Abramoff and his partners. One e-mail from an Abramoff associate said that White House personnel had warned "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] ? e-mail system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc."

Abramoff's response, according to a copy of his e-mail released by Waxman's committee, was: "Dammit. It was sent to Susan on her rnc pager and was not supposed to go into the WH system." Ralston later resigned in connection with the lobbying scandal.

Waxman told RNC Chairman Mike Duncan in a letter that such exchanges "indicated that in some instances White House officials were using nongovernment accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of communications" that could be reviewed by congressional committees or released under the Presidential Records Act.

Lawyers for the committees say that use of campaign-connected e-mail addresses may make it easier to gather information because it would be harder for the White House to make a broad claim of executive privilege. Lawyers for congressional Democrats have anticipated that the White House will invoke executive privilege in an effort to block requests for information about its role in the firing of U.S. attorneys, Abramoff and other matters.

In the U.S. attorney case, Rove deputy Jennings used the RNC e-mail system to write to D. Kyle Sampson, then Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, in August 2006 about replacing Arkansas U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III with former Rove protege Tim Griffin.

"We're a go for the U.S. atty plan. WH leg, political and communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes," Jennings wrote in an e-mail from the gwb43.com domain name. Sampson noted in a related e-mail that "getting him appointed was important to" Rove, then-White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers and other officials.

The gwb43.com account, and others like it, have been traced to the Republican National Committee computer servers, Waxman's staff said.

Doug Sosnik, White House political director under Clinton, says that his office had a small number of separate computers and cellphones for campaign-related matters but that the scope of the political operation was smaller than that in the Bush White House.

For both administrations, the separate system was an acknowledgment that certain White House jobs necessarily mixed policy and politics. Though campaign-related activity is prohibited for federal workers on the job, White House appointees typically work extraordinarily long hours and are required to be available around the clock.

Sosnik said only a handful of people used the political computers in the Clinton White House, which were purchased with campaign funds. However, he said, the political messaging from the Bush team appears to have been broader than that of Clinton's. He could recall no instance, for example, in which campaign computers or cellphones were used to communicate with the Justice Department.

Levine, the former Bush press aide, said he saw senior White House colleagues, including Rove and his top staff, moving fluidly between the two computer systems, which often sat on officials' desks along with their government computers.

But Levine said he found the two computers with their separate purposes and log-in procedures confusing and inefficient. So he quietly slid his RNC laptop into a desk drawer, deciding to use the telephone rather than e-mail to communicate anything that was not considered official government business.

"In retrospect," he said last week, "I was lucky."

Originally posted by: PrevaricatorJohn
Get real.

They may have been trying to hide politically dangerous and questionable activities, but criminal? As far as I can tell this is a political scandal, not a criminal one.

As far as I can tell, you're incapable of telling anyone anything when it comes to the truth about your Liar In Chief and his criminal gang of political perverts. :thumbsdown: :| :thumbsdown:

If you were ever to "get real," the sick fantasy that comprises your entire world would vaporize in nanoseconds.

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
I wish they would just subpoena Rove already and end this merry-go-round horseshite.

If there was ever a person that earned and deserves the nickname "Turdblossom" it is that fvcker.

Careful, or they'll cancel your syndicated radio show for insulting all those nice little turdblossoms out there. :laugh:

 

[mendeh]

Lawyer: Rove didn't mean to delete email

WASHINGTON - Karl Rove's lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush's chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored server, saying Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law.

The issue arose because the White House and Republican National Committee have said they may have lost e-mails from Rove and other administration officials. Democratically chaired congressional committees want those e-mails for their probe of the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

"His understanding starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived," Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said.

The prosecutor probing the Valerie Plame spy case saw and copied all of Rove's e-mails from his various accounts after searching Rove's laptop, his home computer, and the handheld computer devices he used for both the White House and Republican National Committee, Luskin said.

The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, subpoenaed the e-mails from the White House, the RNC and Bush's re-election campaign, he added.

"There's never been any suggestion that Fitzgerald had anything less than a complete record," Luskin said.

Any e-mails Rove deleted were the type of routine deletions people make to keep their inboxes orderly, Luskin said. He said Rove had no idea the e-mails were being deleted from the server, a central computer that managed the e-mail.

On Thursday, one Democratic committee chairman said his understanding was that the RNC believed Rove might have been deleting his e-mails and in 2005 took action to preserve them in accordance with the law and pending legal action.

The mystery of the missing e-mails is just one part of a furor over the firings of eight federal prosecutors that has threatened Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' job and thrown his Justice Department into turmoil.

For now, Bush is standing by his longtime friend from Texas, who has spent weeks huddled in his fifth-floor conference room at the Justice Department preparing to tell his story to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

New documents released Friday by the Justice Department may shed additional light, but their release prompted Gonzales' one-time chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to postpone a closed-door interview with congressional investigators.

The missing e-mails posed some of the weightiest questions of a sprawling political and legal conflict between the Bush administration and Democrats in Congress.

Democrats are questioning whether any White House officials purposely sent e-mails about official business on the RNC server ? then deleted them, in violation of the law ? to avoid scrutiny.

White House officials say they can't answer that question, but they say the administration is making an honest effort to recover any lost e-mails.

Luskin said Rove didn't know that deleting e-mails from his RNC inbox also deleted them from the RNC's server. That system was changed in 2005.

Rove voluntarily allowed investigators in the Plame case to review his laptop and copy the entire hard drive, from which investigators could have recovered even deleted e-mails, Luskin said.

As the investigation was winding down, Luskin said, prosecutors came to his office and reviewed all the documents ? including e-mails ? he had collected to be sure both sides a complete set.

Luskin said he has not heard from Fitzgerald's office and said that, if Fitzgerald believed any e-mails were destroyed, he would have called. Fitzgerald's office declined comment.

The White House did not immediately respond to Luskin's comments.

A lawyer for the RNC told congressional investigators that the RNC may be able to recover some of those e-mails sent from August 2004 on. That's when the RNC put a hold on an automatic purge policy.

The RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also said that the Republican committee has none of Rove's e-mails on its server prior to 2005, possibly because Rove deleted them, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.

Sometime in 2005, the RNC took action solely to prevent Rove from deleting his e-mails on that server. One reason for specifying Rove, Waxman said, appears to have been pending legal action against him.

It was unclear, Waxman said, whether the RNC had or would be able to recover e-mails written by any White House officials, including Rove, and sent on the committee's account.

The White House and RNC said they are taking action to recover as many lost e-mails as possible. Some 50 past and current White House aides had the RNC accounts, according to the administration, to avoid using government resources to conduct political business.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_go_pr_wh/fired_prosecutors_99

rigggghhhhttt

 

[piasabird]

So why is it a requirement that any organization save all their E-mails?

Do you save all your E-mails?

I delete E-mails every day at work. However, if I think an Email is important a save it till it is time to make more space and then I Archive it from the Server to the PC. I delete a lot of E-mail that does not apply to me like news bulletins, spam, phishing attacks, Drug Related, and useless stuff like bake sales and other non-related items.

It is not reasonable to keep a lot of evidence against yourself for 8 years. Plus some time in-between you probably would buy a new computer.

 

[cumhail]

Originally posted by: piasabird
So why is it a requirement that any organization save all their E-mails?

Do you save all your E-mails?

I delete E-mails every day at work. However, if I think an Email is important a save it till it is time to make more space and then I Archive it from the Server to the PC. I delete a lot of E-mail that does not apply to me like news bulletins, spam, phishing attacks, Drug Related, and useless stuff like bake sales and other non-related items.

It is not reasonable to keep a lot of evidence against yourself for 8 years. Plus some time in-between you probably would buy a new computer.

According to an article now on Yahoo! News:

"The White House has acknowledged that Rove and others at times conducted official business on RNC accounts and that some of this e-mail traffic may wrongly have been deleted, including some related to the firing of the U.S. prosecutors."
Full story at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070413/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc

Now going by your logic... if you were serving a second consecutive presidential term as a senior political advisor to the President of the United States and had somewhat recently used this outside email system to conduct official white house business that involved a firing of 8 US Prosecutors, would you determine that, as you put it, that "Email is important a save it till it is time to make more space and then I Archive it from the Server to the PC" or would you lump it in with "news bulletins, spam, phishing attacks, Drug Related, and useless stuff like bake sales and other non-related items" and delete it?

 

[Lemon law]

I really wonder about the wisdom of requiring all e-mails be saved.

If Rove's inbox is anything like my inbox, the first curse is likely spam---all those offers to enlarge parts of the anatomy that Karl may or may not have. And given the efficiency at which spammers harvest e-mail addresses,
any e-mail address soon makes it onto those little lists.

The second huge danger is something like the following----suppose I bop down to Starbucks with my lappy and take advantage of the free wireless hot spot----and send Karl the following totally fictious E-mail.

Dear Karl Rove,

As requested by you, I have arranged that little accident for the New Jersey Gov. Please drop my payment off at the hollow pumpkin in my Garden. Lol---ll

Maybe this is similar to the dirty tricks Karl is suspected of using---but it hardly makes its morally right---and if an investigator got a hold of any such required to be saved communication----they would go ballistic over nothing since its starts out with the initial premise of being totally bogus.---but I think its shows what amounts to slippery slope. And if a dirty trickster ever got a hold of a valid white house e-mail address and hid their tracks, such messages could be sent out by the millions.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The second huge danger is something like the following----suppose I bop down to Starbucks with my lappy and take advantage of the free wireless hot spot----and send Karl the following totally fictious E-mail.

Dear Karl Rove,

As requested by you, I have arranged that little accident for the New Jersey Gov. Please drop my payment off at the hollow pumpkin in my Garden. Lol---ll

Assuming you had Rove's address, it wouldn't mean anything without any other evidence that he knew who you are and that there was other communication with you on this or related topics.

 

[smashp]

Its funny seeing all the people that have no clue about email compliance issues that corporations face everyday. 7 years of email.

Also funny seeing Lemon Laws compents about dropping down to starbucks and spoofing an email. The RNC servers Have SPF enabled and check reverse dns. Look it up.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: piasabird

I delete a lot of E-mail that does not apply to me like news bulletins, spam, phishing attacks, Drug Related, and useless stuff like bake sales and other non-related items.

None of this is a problem if the RNC is utilizing a mid to upper grade spam filter. None of those ever even hit the mailbox store. I might suggest, if they don't have competent enough IT staffers, that they look into a Barracuda to eliminate the need for that type of issue.

And even if Ol' Karl did delete them "accidentally", they should still be residing on the server and, even if the RNC's policy of purging the system every 30 days is in effect, they should still have a backup/disaster recovery plan in place that keeps those on tape. I worked for a government contractor and we kept daily/weekly/monthly/annual tapes in a remote facility.....just in case someone did something "accidentally" that we would have to go back and research.

Originally posted by: Lemon law
I really wonder about the wisdom of requiring all e-mails be saved.

If Rove's inbox is anything like my inbox, the first curse is likely spam---all those offers to enlarge parts of the anatomy that Karl may or may not have. And given the efficiency at which spammers harvest e-mail addresses,
any e-mail address soon makes it onto those little lists.

The second huge danger is something like the following----suppose I bop down to Starbucks with my lappy and take advantage of the free wireless hot spot----and send Karl the following totally fictious E-mail.

Dear Karl Rove,

As requested by you, I have arranged that little accident for the New Jersey Gov. Please drop my payment off at the hollow pumpkin in my Garden. Lol---ll

Maybe this is similar to the dirty tricks Karl is suspected of using---but it hardly makes its morally right---and if an investigator got a hold of any such required to be saved communication----they would go ballistic over nothing since its starts out with the initial premise of being totally bogus.---but I think its shows what amounts to slippery slope. And if a dirty trickster ever got a hold of a valid white house e-mail address and hid their tracks, such messages could be sent out by the millions.

I would also hope that the RNC's IT staff would have, for folks the likes of Karl and others in WH positions, an approved sender list that would block unsolicited e-mails like you are describing above. But that's just the way I would do it if I were manning the e-mails for someone that supposedly only has one higher up and records are to be maintained.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Equinox
Okay, here is a part that I have a tremendous problem with:

"White House staff is now being advised that if they question whether an e-mail is political or official, the staff should use their private accounts, but also preserve a copy to be sent to White House lawyers for a determination of whether the e-mail needs to be saved under the Presidential Records Act."

Are my tax dollars paying a lawyer to sift through Republican National Party email? Because if I am paying for this, I don't think I should be. I thought it was the responsibility of the political party foot the bill for their activities, not "The White House"

EDIT: It seemed such an interesting question, I decided to ask the Citizens Ethics Committee. I wonder how long it takes them to review things like that?

Well the problem you refer to seems to be one of overly complicated rules, i.e., Congresses doing.

Apparently, if you use WH servers to speak of RNC matters, that is illegal.

Apparently, if you use RNC servers to talk about official duties (and copies are'nt kept and put in WH servers), that is illegal.

So, if you are unsure about which server it belongs you need an attorny's opinion to help make sure you are not inadvertantly breaking the law.
-----------------------------------------

OK, I'm trying keep an eye on this while cranking out tax work etc. So pardon me if I ask a stupid question (somethings that's already been explained)

So, what's the beef here? Is it noncompliance with the Whatchamacallit Act for retaining records or does this have something to do with AG "firings" ?

If it's the latter, I don't understand. IIRC, I read in the newpaper this AM that the RNC server retained all copies since '04 or '05, and yet the AG's were just recently "fired". So they should have all copies of email for the relavent period, right?

Fern

 

[mendeh]

Originally posted by: Fern
OK, I'm trying keep an eye on this while cranking out tax work etc. So pardon me if I ask a stupid question (somethings that's already been explained)

So, what's the beef here? Is it noncompliance with the Whatchamacallit Act for retaining records or does this have something to do with AG "firings" ?

If it's the latter, I don't understand. IIRC, I read in the newpaper this AM that the RNC server retained all copies since '04 or '05, and yet the AG's were just recently "fired". So they should have all copies of email for the relavent period, right?

Fern

yes this is related to the firing of the us attorneys. congress has issued subpeonas for white house and rnc emails and files to learn more about the purge. now it turns out that maybe millions of emails have been lost/deleted and most of the ones that congress does get are heavily redacted. its very shady.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: mendeh

Originally posted by: Fern
OK, I'm trying keep an eye on this while cranking out tax work etc. So pardon me if I ask a stupid question (somethings that's already been explained)

So, what's the beef here? Is it noncompliance with the Whatchamacallit Act for retaining records or does this have something to do with AG "firings" ?

If it's the latter, I don't understand. IIRC, I read in the newpaper this AM that the RNC server retained all copies since '04 or '05, and yet the AG's were just recently "fired". So they should have all copies of email for the relavent period, right?Fern

yes this is related to the firing of the us attorneys. congress has issued subpeonas for white house and rnc emails and files to learn more about the purge. now it turns out that maybe millions of emails have been lost/deleted and most of the ones that congress does get are heavily redacted. its very shady.

K Thx,

So am I wrong about the dates whereby the RNC began retaining all copies of email, or have WH discussions of "firing" these AGs gone back a very long period (such that they predate '04 or '05) ?

Fern

 

[Harvey]

A little more light escapes from the Blackhouse:

Documents Show Justice Ranking U.S. Attorneys

by Ari Shapiro

All Things Considered, April 13, 2007 · The Justice Department sent Congress a new batch of documents about the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. The documents show Justice Department and White House staffers planning the firings and trying to control the subsequent fallout.

Some of the newly released documents are repeats, like the letter in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, responds to a suggestion from White House counsel Harriet Miers that all 93 U.S. attorneys be fired.

NPR now has new information about that plan. According to someone who's had conversations with White House officials, the plan to fire all 93 U.S. attorneys originated with political adviser Karl Rove. It was seen as a way to get political cover for firing the small number of U.S. attorneys the White House actually wanted to get rid of. Documents show the plan was eventually dismissed as impractical.

The Justice Department documents released today include a spreadsheet ranking all 93 prosecutors. The chart ranks them on whether they have Hill experience, campaign experience, and ? in the last column ? whether they're members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

By eventually dismissing the eight prosecutors, the White House started down a path that has led to a clash with Congress over executive privilege. The current question is whether, and how, White House officials will testify about their role in the dismissals.

In a letter Thursday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Congress he won't budge from his original offer ? to let Congress interview White House staffers privately, with no oath or transcript.

Sources tell NPR that Fielding actually wants to negotiate with Congress about how the interviews will take place. But Fielding has not been able to persuade President Bush to go along.

Congress still wants to know more about the months leading up to the firings and who was involved in the decision-making. A House committee has subpoenaed some of that information. Other details are likely to come out when Gonzales testifies before Congress about the firings Tuesday.

 

[Lemon law]

Its now Friday the 13'th---in four days---Alberto is scheduled to take the stand and swear to tell de truth----I may not be much of a gambling man and lay Las Vegas odds--but my guess is that Alberto will no longer be AG when the Washington DC rooster crows on the dawn of the 17'th.---look at his aide---Monica Goodling--who picked Sunday as the best day to resign.

If you can't lick em---reshuffle the deck is the GWB SOP.-----GWB&co. have more Alberto Gonzales wannabes than you can shake a stick at.

One day congress may want more and actually follow up----but have they really cut to the chase and laid a subpoena on Rummy yet?

 

[BMW540I6speed]

Feburary 24, 2006

The defense was told that the White House had recently located and turned over about 250 pages of e-mails from the vice president's office. Fitzgerald, in a letter last month to the defense, had cautioned Libby's lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House's archiving system had failed.

April 11, 2007

Political advisers to President Bush may have improperly used their Republican National Committee e-mail accounts to conduct official government business, and some communications that are required to be preserved under federal law may be lost as a result, White House officials said Wednesday. . .

As a result, Mr. Stanzel said, "some official e-mails have potentially been lost." He said Mr. Bush had told the White House counsel's office "to do everything practical to retrieve potentially lost messages."

March 24,2007

In DOJ documents that were publicly posted by the House Judiciary Committee, there is a gap from mid-November to early December in e-mails and other memos, which was a critical period as the White House and Justice Department reviewed, then approved, which U.S. attorneys would be fired while also developing a political and communications strategy for countering any fallout from the firings.

April 3, 2007

A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.

For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.

But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident.

February 28,2007

The disclosure that the Pentagon had lost a potentially important piece of evidence in one of the U.S. government's highest-profile terrorism cases was met with claims of incredulity by some defense lawyers and human-rights groups monitoring the case. "This is the kind of thing you hear when you're litigating cases in Egypt or Morocco or Karachi," said John Sifton, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, one of a number of groups that has criticized the U.S. government's treatment of Padilla. "It is simply not credible that they would have lost this tape. The administration has shown repeatedly they are more interested in covering up abuses than getting to the bottom of whether people were abused."

Alicia Valle, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miama, said in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK that the missing DVD was "of the last interrogation of Padilla while in military custody." She further added that a lawyer for DIA had advised the court "that an exhaustive search was conducted but the [DVD] could not be located."

June 24,2004

Key documents are missing from the batch of newly declassified documents the White House released this week on its policies on torture and the treatment of prisoners, critics say. Absent are any memos to and from the FBI and CIA and any documents dated after April 2003. No documents address the State Department's concern over the Bush administration's interpretation of the Geneva Conventions.

May 24, 2004

The Pentagon sought Sunday to explain why some 2,000 pages were missing from a congressional copy of a classified report detailing the alleged acts of abuse by soldiers against Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison. . . . .

[Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita] was responding to a Time magazine report Sunday that about 2,000 of the report's 6,000 pages submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee were missing. The report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba consists of a declassified summary and about 6,000 pages of classified annexes, including statements from witnesses, prison guards and military intelligence officials.

September 5, 2004

Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.

For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.

No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.

February 2, 2006

The White House failed to archive some e-mails in accordance with normal procedures in 2003, according to a letter from a special prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, disclosed the failure last week to defense attorneys for a former White House official, I. Lewis Libby, who is facing perjury and obstruction of justice charges in the probe.

"We advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote in the January 23 letter, which was filed in federal court on Tuesday.

December 18, 2003

Hundreds of videotapes that federal prison officials had claimed were destroyed show that foreign nationals held at a New York detention facility after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were victims of physical and verbal abuse by guards, the Justice Department's inspector general said yesterday. . .

Many of the incidents of abuse were confirmed when investigators viewed more than 300 videotapes recorded from October to November 2001 that showed detainees being moved around the facility and within their cells, investigators said. . . .

The tapes eventually located in August had not been included on inventory sheets provided by the prison and were held in a storage room that also had not been disclosed to investigators, the report said. Many tapes from the period are still missing, and there are unexplained gaps the ones that were found, the report shows.

March 1,2006

Administration and congressional officials said that the administration provided congressional investigators earlier this year with official transcripts of the daily noon FEMA conference calls conducted before, during and after Katrina. But the administration initially told Congress that the transcript for the Aug. 29 call -- the call congressional investigators were most curious about, given that it occurred as the hurricane was actually battering the Gulf Coast?did not exist, with officials initially telling Capitol Hill that someone at FEMA or Homeland Security forgot to push the button on a tape recorder.

"Everybody has been looking for that transcript," former FEMA chief Michael Brown said Wednesday.

Is it me, or does this administration have the uncany "knack" for "loseing" & "misplaceing" highly important documents & videotape?

 

[imported_Infidel]

He he, when you do it, you do it up right.