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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."
... really come to anyone as a surprise by now?
There is a war going on for your mind.
..Bush will still be allowed continue on this rampage without being impeached. Incredible.
Blerg.
And, as usual, no one will be held accountable for it. If it looks like someone may, they will claim "National Security" and halt all proceedings. It would seem that "Slick Willy" has some competition.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
gwb43.com and georgewbush.com domains are marked as spam domains. Would you keep copies of spam mails ?
...how much has to happen before impeachment proceedings? He is clearly at least as deserving as any former president, and probably far more. If you can have people impeaching you over a blowjob - which I know is a very tired statement, but bear with me - then bush's long, long list of offenses surely must qualify. As if I needed any further proof that the Democrats and Republicans are all part of the same gang...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What is the penalty for violating internal White House policy, I asked? "I don't believe the staff manual contains penalties for failure to preserve," the lawyer said.
Stanzel, possibly unwittingly, offered one possible explanation for why the rule on preservation was flouted so widely: Because there was apparently no prospect of personal consequences. "There are no personal violations of the Presidential Records Act, but you can have a personal violation of the Hatch Act," he said.
The lawyer criticized the crystal-clear (to me) ban on using non-White House e-mail for official purposes as being "too concise" and described a new, more extensive White House policy No accountability, no responsibility, no repercussions for stepping over the line, no penalties, maybe they'll make some new rules as a token gesture of fixing the problem, they'll be sure to leave better loopholes with even less accountability in the new rules...
Our government has become everything that the first settlers to America were trying to get away from.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Wow. Nixon had NOTHING on the current thugs in the White House administration. It's patently absurd that these people haven't been impeached, fired, and tried for treason at this point.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm generally a conservative -- very pro-gun, willing to try the "surge" in Iraq, generally favor Republican policies over Democratic ones -- but I'm to the point now where I think the Bush administration (which I've never really felt comfortable with) has demonstrated that it is entirely corrupt -- lying to get into Iraq, lying about Plame, and now the total fix/lie-fest of the US Attorney mess.
Bush needs to hang Rove out to dry -- let a special prosecutor send that guy to a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, can Gonzalez and seal the door to Cheney's office.
"Parallels are being drawn with the infamous '18 minutes' missing from the Nixon Watergate tapes."
Just like with the documents that went missing during the Whitewater investigations, right?
In fact, mine is likely the more apt comparison: because the odds are that those "thousands of e-mails" are as innocuous as the missing documents found in (iirc) the attic of Clinton's White House. They certainly aren't each a smoking gun the way the unexplained "18 minutes" might have been. The question is, who is to blame? I'm more prone to look to IT first and the administration second.
The second part, about them using RNC domains, is far more troubling to me. I'd be interested to know the specifics of the law they reportedly violated, and whether it was intentional.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Nope... USA has become a 1st class banana republic.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Given these facts, you're surprised he thinks the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply to him? You're joking right? You think these people want to be held accountable 5-10 years from now? Put it in the memory hole, so we can have one of those swell state funerals like they had for Ronald Reagan, put on the rose-colored glasses and talk about how greatness of this catastrophy of a President. America wins the war on intelligence!
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.
On the plus side, I bet it will be tough to claim executive privilege on those e-mails.
#!
Look, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. It's fine if you want to ignore both history and what is going on around you, that's your prerogative and one engaged in frequently by the majority of the population of the USA. But the simple fact is that our current president has a worse record in every way than any former president! The deficit has been swelled more than ever before, and the pretext under which we went to war was a lie. (They later tried to foist the blame for the belief that Saddam was sitting on WMDs off on other countries, but you should be sure before you sign your name on the dotted line. Not being sure, but acting as if you are sure, is lying.) At least one election was stolen, although more accurately, both were. Stopping a legal recount without justification is itself an illegal act. And it is well known that many types of badness went on in Florida; listing persons from predominantly black boroughs on a list of disenfranchised felons and literally instructing the company assembling the list not to check it for validity is just one example.
In terms of freedoms lost, this has been one of the worst administrations of all time. And when caught performing a blatantly illegal act his response is "I'm the president!" and to issue a writ. Bush has issued more presidential writs explaining actions which are otherwise illegal (but apparently explaining why you did something illegal makes it okay if you are president, even if your explanation is pure bullshit) than all other presidents combined. You might not consider that cause for concern, but it seems like a big warning sign to me.
Since Bush has done so many things which are clearly impeachable offenses, and the Democrats are not interested in doing it, I must conclude that they feel they have something to gain by not doing so. In other words, as a party they are willing to compromise their convictions (As if they had any) for some temporary gain. Picking your battles is one thing - although I do believe that we let too many battles go in general - but this is just obscene.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but there was a strong groundswell of support for impeachment of Bush when the Democrats once again gained some power in Congress, and it has petered out with nary an action. I don't believe in either major party to any degree any longer. I think I'll just start voting green party to make a statement, and then when I get the cash up I'm getting the fuck out of here. I'm not willing to assassinate anyone, and I think that's about the only thing we could do to make a difference at this point (and no, I'm not talking about killing the president - it would take a lot more than that to make a difference) so if I'm not going to be part of the solution, at least I might as well not be part of the problem.
But like the wise man said, first, let's shoot all the lawyers. (No special offense meant to our friendly and helpful neighborhood lawyers, but the very existence of such people is part of the problem with the entire system. I'll be happy to go on a diatribe about that at a later date.) :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
what about the missing rose law firm documents or the documents missing that sandy berger took?
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
No surprise here. The sad thing is that 99.99% of American probably doesn't care. As long as bad beer flows, Idol is on TV, and reality shows are a proxy for ones life, Americans will sit there fat, DUMB, and happy.
I've almost given up on the common man/woman in America at this point.
Congress already demands that the White House keep all emails. It's called the Presidential Records Act, and is the reason why this is an issue. The PRA requires the offices of the President and the VP to retain all government related communications.
The issue is that government communications which contain discourse relevant to the US Attorney firings were made on RNC owned services and devices - and while the White House systems retain everything, the claim is that the RNC ones don't. Which is a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
So.. er... Yeah, they ALREADY have to keep all emails. The problem is that they didn't. (And problem 2 is that while it's illegal, there doesn't seem to be a consequence)
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
A past precident does not excuse current mistakes! If I walk up to you and punch you in the face and I get away with it, that doesn't make it right for me to walk up again and kick you in the stomach. Wrong is wrong. I'm disgusted by the lack of a sense of justice around here.
Whether they're really gone *permanently* is another story, and already being discussed elsewhere. I think the bigger story, and I was Googling like crazy but can't find the link now, is that it turns out these Republican-controlled email addresses were on some of the *same servers through which electronic voting results were being processed.* I thought I read this on DailyKos but maybe I'm wrong. If anyone has a link to more info. on this, please post. Thanks.
Karl Rove is a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff. The law certainly applies to him. The problem isn't using non governmental resources for political purposes. It's using non governmental equipment for government purposes to avoid the reporting requirements of the Presidential records act.
Thalasar
Fox News: "It's been recently discovered that, in fact, the Clinton Administration had deleted Bush's emails during their second term. The Democrats, as usual, are to blame and need to be held accountable."
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On a similar note, I read this quote today by Lee Iacocca regarding the Bush administration:
"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have."
The Democrats don't really want to impeach Bush. They LOVE the idea of having him still in office during the 2008 election. Although, one would think President Cheney could be just as awful.
I agree that although it wasn't good to lie to a grand jury he did what any person in a marriage would do who wanted protect the marriage. Anyone married knows that if you make the error of fooling around but still love your partner and want to preserve the relationship the best thing to do is bury it as deep as possible. Your partner doesn't really want to know about this, particularly if it was just a short term slip and didn't lead you to question your commitment to the relationship.
Additionally he has his child to consider. Kids want to believe their parents are happy and true to each other. No kid wants to discover one of his or her parents fooled around.
The only reason I can think of to let your partner know about your cheating is if you are really trying to say you don't want to be with him or her anymore and you cheated to make them mad enough to leave you since you don't have the courage to be the one to end the relationship. Or maybe you have some guilt and are naive enough to think spilling the beans is going to make you feel better (not very likely). In general the only times that I know of someone voluntarily telling a partner about infidelity is when that person was feeling the relationship was in trouble, to express serious unhappiness with the relationship, to indicate a desire to end the relationship, or when the person they cheated with was still in the picture in some way. Almost always it means trouble. If your partner tells you they cheated the chances are good that what they are really saying is that they don't want the relationship with you to continue.
Oh, another good reason is if you think you picked up a STD while you where fooling around. Then you have the responsibility to tell your partner so s/he can get treatment.
Anyway, from my perspective Clinton was just acting as responsible as he could in a bad situation. Sure, it was irresponsible to cheat, particular with the stakes so high, but once he got control of himself again and ended the illicit relationship he did what anyone should do in this situation by burying it. He felt he could ride it out because it was his word against her word. If it wasn't for the dress with his DNA on it there would never have been an impeachment.
Peace, or Not?
All the Dems would have to do is watch (and laugh).
I mean, black or hispanic people can make fun of middle age white guys all the time and no one blinks an eye. They can talk about women in much cruder terms than Imus did...hell, they make tons of money off it in 'songs'. Why the double standard?
Lord..to tell the truth...I think the PC atmosphere has given people, particularly the minorities WAY too thin of a skin. I mean, if someone talks about white middle age guys, calls them a cracker or whatever...how many white guys are gonna get all mad and up in arms and demand they be fired? None.
Remember sticks and stones man...they are JUST words...and everyone has a right to speak them. This double standard crap has got to go.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'd like the record to reflect that we have officially recorded our first "B-b-b-b-but Clinton...!" post. GWB could drop a nuke on North Korea and start WWIII and there'd still be some whiny cunt running around going "ZOMGBLOWJOB!!"
Bunch of whiny cunts...
Sorry to double reply, but I forgot to address this:
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.
Are you seriously worried about the legislative branch running wild over the executive?!? Don't you have that completely and totally backwards? The current administration has evidenced a wildly outrageous interpretation of a supreme and nearly unchecked executive branch (energy policy secrecy, war, torture, rendition, signing statements, FEMA, FISA, domestic wiretapping, habeas corpus, scientific report "editing" us attorney purge, etc etc). Whether you like Bush or not, you are deluded to think the executive is in danger of becoming too powerless. The "power grab" you bemoan is the first inkling of actual checks and balances that we've seen in 6 years, and it is not only legal, but is also the way our government is intended to run. Congress has the responsibility for oversight, and the recent reversion to it is nothing but welcome.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Why is it that to refute the firing of the 8 U.S. Attorneys, the conservatives always say "But Clinton did it! He fired all 93 at the start of his administration", as if we're leaving out some key fact. But if you want all the facts in play, you can't stop half way. Every president, Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton, and Bush #2, all fired the U.S. Attorney's at the start of their terms. Its customary.
What is not customary is firing 8 of them - the same ones you appointed, no less - in the middle of your term, for dubious reasons which may have included, but not been limitted to the fact that many of these 8 attorney's apparently either refused to back off on investigations of Republicans, or refused to vigorously persue investigations of Democrats - probably because in both scenario's they acted based on what they felt was warranted by the available evidence. In other words they acted as they were supposed to, as unbiased officers of the law, not as political shrills which is what Bush wanted them to be.
By the way, has anyone besides me realised that with 8 of the 93 attornies fired for not doing enough to go after the Democrats or too much to go after the Republicans, that leaves 85 who, by implication, are doing plenty to go after the Democrats and ignoring the mis-steps of the Republicans. Shudder.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Their consistent MO has been to spout brazen nonsense, then rely on the sheer effrontery to keep the truth hidden until it is covered in a pile of bullshit so deep it will never be brought to light. And the damned thing is that it worked -- a least for a while. Seriously, who has time to think about the truth behind the Iraq WMD lie?
Actually, if you go back to early 2003 and look at the propaganda leading up to the invasion of Iraq, you'll see that the Bush gang pretty much gave up on the WMD argument during the last month or so. The reason was that it had been so thoroughly debunked by so many people that they realized they needed a new pretext. They had pretty much run through all that were even remotely credible, so they pulled out their trump card: They had to stage a pre-emptive attack to prevent whatever Saddam's government might do in the future.
This pretty much stopped the attempts to debunk their arguments, because this one can't be debunked. Unless you are blind, deaf and quadraplegic, you could be planning an attack on anyone, no matter who you are or how peaceful you've been in the past. It's a challenge-proof excuse for attacking anyone anywhere anytime.
This is still remembered by a fair number of people in the world. It became clear that the people running the US government weren't joking when they used the phrase "sole remaining super-power". They did consider themselves in charge of the world, and they were prepared to attack anyone who challenged them. Or even people who didn't challenge them. They don't need evidence; all they need is to think that you might attack them.
A lot of us still remember this. And we remember that roughly half of the Americans who bothered to vote in 2004 voted to give these people four more years.
(The WMD concept does keep rearing its ugly head, of course. This is partly because of the discovery that, despite several more years of debunking, around half the voting American population still believes it. But it's also routinely used by American comedians, so it's not so good as a theme song any more. The real future is in worrying about what you and I might do in the future if we're not stopped now.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
>...almost certainly legal.
Why do you qualify it? Until someone comes forward with a lawful order, issued prior to the trip, that stipulates what she did was proscribed, there is no argument.
In order to make this case against Pelosi, three things are required:
1. State the case explicitly. What is it, precisely, that she is accused of doing? This information must be supported by evidence, such as testimony from eyewitnesses. If she visited some place that she was prohibited from going, please show us the order from the State Department indicating that. If she said something to someone which was forbidden on the basis of some compelling state interest, show us where this has been alleged in some lawful way, by someone with the authority to do so. Authority, under our system of government, does not take the form of "everything not expressly permitted, is forbidden." This is fundamental. State the case describing what the person is accused of doing, and show the evidence to support the accusation.
2. State the law that was broken. The only law that has been mentioned in the Pelosi visit to Syria, to my knowledge, is the Logan Act. If you have satisfied requirement #1, then you may have an argument in terms of the Logan Act's predicate of "authority." But there is more that must be done. You need to be prepared to explain to a Federal Grand Jury that you seek to press charges based on a law that has no judicial history whatsoever. You will be asking for the first indictment in history, using a law that has no case law history at all, and you want that first indictment to be against an elected official who holds the highest legislative office in government -- having authority co-equal to that of the President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
3. Demonstrate that your evidence supports your conclusion without violating the Constitutional Rights of any individual, and without making any procedural errors. This may be difficult to do, as all arguments I have seen thus far, single out the current Speaker of the House individually, and as far as I can tell, accuse her of some crime while broad immunity is granted to all others who have done precisely the same thing. It may take a considerable amount of effort to make a criminal case against one individual who has done something that others do routinely, but without such criminal exposure.
So, are you just being cautious with your "almost certainly legal" remark? Because the "almost" aspect of that, might become a factor if the entire foundation of the rule of law in the US is set aside for this one argument. I'm going with "was absolutely, 100% not illegal," and I would go further, the very few lawful means of preventing the Speaker from doing what she did, would themselves have created a much more significant controversy than the one we are discussing. Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if the President had ordered the State Department to revoke the passports of Members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House? How do you think it would go over if *only* the Democrats in Congress had their passports revoked?
Please realize that without some specific lawful order that existed prior to the Congressional Delegation to Syria, there can be no valid argument that a crime was committed.
Fortunately, it is not yet the law of the land that an action which might run counter to the personal opinions of the President is a crime of treason.
And that, when you get down to it, is the basic premise of the argument the right wing is trying to make against Madame Speaker.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The difference was the Democratic controlled congress, particularly Democrats sitting as chairmen of committees (like the Judicial Committee) that can issue subpoenas. And the funny thing is, had it been 10 months ago, the bald face lying would have worked, because the republic congress had already shown time and time again that they would take the Bush Administration's word at face value, and not look further. Gonzales would have said that the firings had nothing to do with politics or a peversion of the Judicial branch, Bush would have said Gonzales is a good man and I trust him, Democrats and many American would scream murder, but no subpoenas would be issued, and the truth would never be found. The news would stop reporting on it after a week, and that would be the end of it. Watch how much the shape of American politics changes when we have actual checks and balances.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
He run the government exactly like a business: cheating his way to the top, minimizing social and health care costs, making deals under the table that promoted his buddies over the competition, made rich people richer and poor people poorer, gave no $h1t for the environment, managed to piss off all other businesses etc.
Everybody deletes e-mail messages. But the sort of thing that the Clinton White House would delete is at a much more human and benign level than anything that goes on in the Bush White House. Torture, the attack on the Constitution, subversion of the intelligence process, appointment of incompetent cronies and coverup of failures, awards of contracts to profiteers, etc. This is a more honest and open White House?
You were lied to, son. So were we all. This administration will go down in history as the most corrupt and dangerous ever -- that is, if it does not succeed in rewriting the history books to suit its purposes.