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Thousands of White House E-mails Deleted
kidcharles writes "The Washington Post reports that in the midst of an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Department of Justice, numerous White House e-mails have been lost. Among them are communications from presidential adviser Karl Rove. Parallels are being drawn with the infamous '18 minutes' missing from the Nixon Watergate tapes. Also at issue is the use of Republican National Committee e-mail domains (such as gwb43.com and georgewbush.com) rather than the official White House domain. This is a violation of the Presidential Records Act."
Yesterday he said this:
Here are the specifics of what is required by the Hatch Act. It is clear that
A) Politicization (partisan activities) within certain Federal Agencies, such as the CIA or the Justice Department, is a felony.
B) All records relating to government business MUST be retained for investigative purposes, and later historical preservation. To destroy these documents is a felony.
This law is clear, has been on the books since the 1930s, and has passed several Supreme Court affirmations. There's no wiggle room here. This is a clear violation of the law. And note A) in relation to the Federal US Attorney firings. To fire is legal; to fire with even just partisan intent -- never mind apparent Obstruction of Justice -- is a clear felony.
We're walking right into another constitutional crisis. Comparisons to Nixon's firing of Archibold Cox (The Saturday Night Massacre) are spot on.
In all seriousness, at least Sen. Patrick Leahy is smart enough to know that emails are not easily erased.
Quoting Leahy:
"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."
Every President in the 20th Century fired all US Attorneys upon taking the oath of office and assuming the role of the Presidency. This is considered standard practice. Here is an LA Times article on the history of administration hirings upon inauguration:
- na-talking23mar23,0,3342736,full.story?coll=la-hom e-headlines
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la
Firing US Attorneys in term is another matter. That has happened only a few times over the last century, and always due to malfeasance or criminal activity on the part of the US Attorney in question. The Hatch Act (the subject of this discussion) expressly forbids political activity or partisan interference in both the Judiciary and the Justice Department (it also demands full records keeping for all Federal activities).
It would appear our President and his advisers have committed felonies.
Educate yourself, and do not recycle talking points that were tried and discredited weeks ago. Clinton fired all but ONE USA at the *beginning* of his *first* term. The ONE USA he did not fire was the one who was investigating him. Clinton could have fired that USA, too, and been well within his rights, but he didn't so as to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Bush fired several USAs midway through his second term. Not typical. In fact, unprecedented.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I can't think of no better way to refute this sort of spew than to quote one if its finest purveyors back at you. Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2005: After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out.
More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission." Sandy Berger was punished and the final result of his actions was, uhh, nothing. No information was permanently lost. Whichever one of Karl's minions clicked "delete" willfully and permanently erased years worth of evidence in a criminal investigation, and when the resulting obstruction charge is handed down, it's going to be extremely gratifying.
So, recapping: your analogy is flawed, your point is wrong, and my guess is you knew all of this and went ahead and said it anyways. Cuz that's how you people operate. Lie till you get caught, then go on the offensive when you do.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
It's not a violation of the act. You have to use separate phones/email for "political purposes" ask Al Gore about his hearing for using the White House phone to drum up donations. Get your facts right. You can't force the White House to use government owned systems for that -- THAT is illegal. They could have stored copies of of the off-site system sure... but they have no law forcing them to do that. I hate to break it to you but you also can't force staff members to turn over their home answering machines either. What a weak troll. Even if you hate Bush you shouldn't stand for the power grab the Congress is going for lately. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. If you keep heading down this road the president becomes a figurehead, and soon the people that write the laws will be enforcing them as well. More likely not enforcing them and building bridges to nowhere.
That is factually wrong. Laws were broken. A CIA agent was outed without proper clearance. The barrier between those who were allowed to know vs. the general public was crossed.
Libby has been convicted of saying different things at different times about what he remembers about when he recalls talking to people about something that wasn't a problem and didn't cause any problems, except for himself.
This is factually wrong. Libby was convicted of perjury. Perjury is purposefully lying under oath, in this case to a grand jury. Moreover, the "something that wasn't a problem" as you call it clearly WAS a problem, namely a CIA agent who had been working on counter-terrorism in the area of weapons of mass destruction was outed. Problems WERE caused-- not only the CIA agent was outed, but her entire network, including fake companies and other contacts were outed.
She wasn't covert
Factually wrong. Read her testimony. And I quote,
the White House didn't leak her name
Again, wrong. Although Armitage leaked her name first, her name was ALSO independently leaked by Rove and others to members of the media.
Pretty straightforward to me.
her husband's silly take on things has been roundly and thoroughly debunked, and he's been pointed out as lying about (or just being oily about) the whole thing from the beginning
not sure which "silly take on things" you're referring to, but he was 100% correct about yellowcake in Niger and that he had been targeted by Rove and others in the White House has been confirmed in Dick Cheney's own handwriting.
Perhaps you're thinking of the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellen's account that no one in the White House had leaked, which HAS been thoroughly debunked. Or maybe you're thinking of Bush's claim to that effect, and that anyone who had leaked would "no longer work" at the White House. Another lie.
Where's the corruption in this?
Where to begin... it could be in the White House's complete lack of support in finding the truth, lying to cover it up, lying about what the consequences would be if a traitor were found, lying to get us into a war, and then attacking an individual who was trying to get the truth out to the public. Somewhere in there.
the special prosecutor, who knew the whole story almost immediately, worked this in an entirely political manner?
Sorry, the special prosecutor had a theory (which turned out to be correct) about who the leaker was, but went to additional sources to confirm that this was in fact the leaker, the first leaker, and the ONLY leaker (which he was not). This requires interviewing more witnesses. Dick Cheney's 2nd man decided to lie under these circumstances, and to NOT bust him for this would endanger the legal process just as much as say, hiring a yes-man as the Attorney General or firing DAs for political reasons.
Pull your head out of your ass, stop listening to Rush/Hannity for your news, and quit spreading such bald-face lies.
And I'm still trying to figure out how Bill Clinton firing 93 US attorneys is justified while Gonzalez (allegedly at the direction of Bush) firing 8 is somehow a "scandal."
Because firing them all when you take office is standard practice. Firing some of them in the middle of your term for political reasons (eg, they are in the process of investigating certain Republicans), is NOT standard practice and actually falls under a little something called "obstruction of justice".
Pardon me, but your hypocrisy is showing.
Your ignorance is.
You're pointing out that they don't need to save messages relating to "private political associations"
That is true.
At issue, however, are the emails that are *KNOWN* to have been sent via these domains that are official government business. Scott Jennings (a Rove assistant) was interfacing with DOJ on the USA firings via his gwb43.com account. It's been openly acknowledged that Rove more or less exclusively used the RNC supplied email - both for his partisan activity and for his official governmental activity. (And yes, a fair amount of his communication is subject to the PRA - he's on the White House payroll in an official capacity, after all)
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
Bush fired several USAs midway through his second term.
Bush fired most/all US Attorneys at the beginning of his first term, AND fired again several of them midway through his second term as well.
The war on terror began with Ronald Reagan. Want to know the best part? It was Ronald Reagan that normalized relations with Iraq, took them off the list of state sponsored terror, and sold them the "weapons of mass destruction" and other munitions. The irony? People in the current administration did it.
Let's look at an abbreviated list shall we?
Want further irony? It was also Ronald Reagan that trained and funded bin Laden.
Now let's do a thought experiment - how would the majority of American's feel about Ronald Reagan and these people that worked both for him and the current administration if they knew a little bit more about them? The reason why most people think that Reagan was a patriot and a great American is because they know very little about what the Reagan administration was responsible for and the concrete ways it is impacting us today.
Another thing: can you identify what exactly is petty in my argument? The fact that I pointed out that the state sponsored funeral for Ronald Reagan was an elaborate stage show for the current administration? I don't even like Reagan and what he stood for, but I think it was a tragedy that he was used as a set piece for a political play for sentiment and support by the Bush administration.
There is a major difference. It goes to intent.
It is one thing to fire them all at the beginning of one's term, indiscrimnately, which many presidents have done, to "start fresh" (although prior to the Patriot Act all such appointments had to go be approved by the Senate and as such required at least pretense of competence).
It is quite another to fire them only when they start conducting "inconvenient" investigations. Say Nixon's attempt at firing the prosecutor who decided to look too closely at Watergate. Or if Clinton had somehow tried to fire Kenneth Starr.
>You mean like engaging in unauthorized diplomatic negotiations with a foreign power? That's treason.
Oops. Careful. Before accusing the Speaker of the House of a capital crime, you might want to be sure you are on a solid legal footing.
There has been a flurry lately, among people who have discovered the Logan Act -- a piece of legislation that has NEVER been used. And they give it a cursory reading, and accept when they are told that it applies in the case of Madame Speaker's recent trip to Syria. They completely miss the fact that the Logan Act, even if it were enforceable, and even if it were enforceable against a sitting Member of Congress, is predicated on "authority." The problem, that the Fox news people et al fail to mention, is that she had authority to do what she did, and furthermore, any restrictions on that authority would have to come from an Act of Congress in the first place.
Now, if you can show that Madame Speaker violated a LAWFUL ORDER, we can discuss the validity of that order, and if you can establish that the order was violated, then we can talk about authority, the Logan Act, and treason.
However, you are putting forth an idea that the President's word is law at all times. You are actually going much further -- you are suggesting that just because the President has an opinion, or even, something that a person in the media might assume that opinion would be, THAT OPINION becomes law.
And so, by some extension that I follow not at all, the Speaker of the House did something without authority. And ONLY the Speaker, as a member of a bipartisan delegation together with representatives of the State Department, did something wrong. And nobody seems to be able to articulate, in a manner that would be acceptable to bring a criminal charge, exactly what that wrong thing was. They certainly have not brought evidence of a crime to the table of anyone with any authority to prosecute such a crime.
All they have done is cause those people who already hate the Speaker, and presumably everyone who is not a member of the Bush party, to continue to hate them.
In other words, no net effect.
I would like to think they have educated themselves in the process, on a historical legal curiosity, but sadly, they have not.
Please, before you publicly accuse an elected official of a capital crime, do have your evidence in hand. Otherwise you are simply calling for an assassination; a serious crime.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
No, we are investigating perjury and obstruction of Justice. Amazingly enough, those are the same exact charges for which the Republican senate tried to impeach Clinton.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
It really is quite different. When Clinton got rid of them, they had to be confirmed by congress. Right now he fired those attorneys because he could have appointed whomever he wished without any meaningful oversight.
Additionally there were no allegations when Clinton fired the US attorneys that the whitehouse or Democrats were interfering with investigations to help out their friends. And that is a huge difference.
Carol Lam got fired after getting a $4.7 million settlement against the Golden State Co. for using illegal immigrants to build the border fence. If you can explain how her firing was above reproach, I'll give you a cookie. My guess- punishment for putting Duke Cunningham behind bars.
Sig cannot be found.
I really wish that people would look a little more at the context and a little less at what they WANT to be true. It has been common practice over the last 40 years or so to ask for the resignations of all USA's at the beginning of an administration. Didja get that? AT THE BEGINNING, which is what GWB43 did as well. Putting your own people in place is clearly the President's perogative, by law. The comparison ends there. In eight years, the Clinton administration "fired" about 9 USAs (c/b 8, I don't remember right now). Of those, all but one were what you'd call "for cause" - e.g., one guy got caught on-camera throttling a reporter. This batch of firings was not "for cause" but "by choice", and had the effect, intentional or not, of interfering in several significant and high-profile pending investigations and indictments.