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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."
We all know e-mails are never really deleted. They just hide a little bit harder.
..Bush will still be allowed continue on this rampage without being impeached. Incredible.
Blerg.
From Crooks And Liars:
This one's a no-brainer.
The NSA has been monitoring and logging all US domestic phone and email traffic for a few years now, thanks to Bush and Cheney.
So subpoena the "lost" WH emails from the NSA. Put the domestic spying operation to some practical use.
If they don't have the emails, they aren't doing their job, and it will be time to get rid of the NSA.
Annoyed Canuck | 04.12.07 - 3:57 pm | #
I hope this helps the Federal criminal prosecution of the world's largest crime syndicate.
Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
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
It's a traditional thing, much like the 18.5 minute gap in Nixon's tapes or the shredding of Enron documents:
n _scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_tapes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Enro
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.
#!
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.
"I'd like you to cite one example where the administration knowingly deceived the American public. "
OMG. Your head must be so far in the sand you hear Mandarin.
"many democrats were privy to the very same information the president was and they chose to support the war. Did they lie? The UN believed Saddam had had weapons of mass destruction. Did they lie? Europe also believed Saddam had those weapons. Did they lie?"
No, there mistake was thinking Bush had some inegrity and believed him.
~
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush, speech to UN General Assembly, Sept. 12, 2002
There was no evidence of this, at all.
~
The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq.
- George W. Bush, Nov. 23, 2002
No, many nations wanted evidence, they wanted to know where Bush was getting his information because they couldn't confirm what he was saying.
~
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Jan. 9, 2003
WHen you are the top dog, what your spokeman says counts as coming from you.
~
What we know from UN inspectors over the course of the last decade is that Saddam Hussein possesses thousands of chemical warheads, that he possesses hundreds of liters of very dangerous toxins that can kill millions of people.
- White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, CNN interview, Jan. 26, 2003
UN inspectors never said such a thing.
~
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
- George W. Bush, address to the U.S., March 17, 2003
Again, false.
Intelligence "analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war.
- CIA Director George Tenet, speech, Feb. 5, 2004
~
I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein - because he had a weapons program.
- George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, May 6, 2003
Not a lie, but an interesting statement from a man in 2002 said that the definatly had them.
~
Motivation:
From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. Going after Saddam was topic "A" ten days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
- former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, CBS' 60 Minutes, Jan. 11, 2004
~
My resientment and disgust towards our president is not party based, it is based soley on the action of this administration.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
I'll be surprised if they are deleted beyond the recall of reasonably simple forensic techniques.
If they do manage to hide those emails, that'll be a first for The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight.
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? It's buried in a strata of crap so deep you'd need a team of archaeologists to find it.
I think the reason this works is that regular people, the people who vote, have no way to know directly whether something is true or not. That's the power vacuum in which money is supreme. Then these guys blew it by telling two big lies that the public could see for itself were lies: that the Iraq war is succeeding and that they cared what happened to the victims of Katrina. Katrina was the watershed event. Before you could get away with lying if you were glib enough. Afterward it was much more dangerious.
But they're still doing it.
Take the US attorney firing. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know enough never to tell an easily refuted lie when you can get by with a uselessly vague truth. I'd have been saying things like "It was time for new blood." or "David Iglesias did a fine job, but a shakeup will keep everybody on their toes, and Larry Gomez deserves his chance to show us what he can do."
Instead they concocted a pile of utter horseshit that is easy to disprove and which by the way impugns the reputation and service of a group of people who happen to be -- wait for it -- high power lawyers. Don't they even watch TV? The way prosecutors get you is they let you talk and talk until you've buried yourself in your own crap and you'll do anything they ask if they'll just please, please throw you a rope? It's a wonder these guys can make it from the shower to the breakfast table in the morning without being indicted.
It's never been a surprise these guys are liars. I knew they were liars before they even came in -- and I don't say that lightly. I don't think people are evil because they disagree with me. I don't see eye to eye with Bob Dole, but he would have been a strong and honorable president. But this guy was obviously a pathetic liar from the start. They didn't exactly try to hide the fact they ran a whisper campaign against John McCain in South Carolina. Anybody with even a whisp of decency would had the person responsible fired in disgrace. It's a disgrace to the Republican party they didn't kick W out right then and there.
It goes to show you there are worse things than losing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It surprises the hell out of me because one of the reasons I voted for bush in 2000 were the promises that the Bush administration would bring back honesty, integrity and decency to the white house. :~(
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.
Didn't he also say that he was going to be the CEO President and run the government like a business? That's why I voted for him in 2000. I didn't vote for him in 2004, because I realized that the business he meant was Enron.....
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
You stupid shit. He is running this country exactly the way he's run every company he's ever been in charge of. He's probably the only man in history who's been unable to make a profit running an oil company in Texas, for christ's sake. CEO president does not mean good president; it just means attempting to slash costs and benefits while maintaining maximum profit for himself and the other "executives" of this nation. That's what corporatism is about...
It's always a mistake to think you can run government like a business. It's a double mistake to vote for a politician who claims they can; they're either lying (most politicians) or stupid (take your pick).
Three out of ten businesses go bankrupt within the first year. When a government goes bankrupt it destroys an entire country. Immediately you see there is a difference; you can't run a government like a business and simply hope you're not in that bottom 30%. Governments need to be far more risk adverse.
Governments work with much larger time frames. They need to think in terms of decades. Businesses barely think in terms of years. I think one of the problems with the current administration is that they do only think in terms of years. That works fine in business where you can always bail before the stock tanks - the new investors take the loss instead of you - but it's disastrous for a government.
The US government handles significantly more money than any single US business. This means there are more opportunities for corruption so there is a corresponding stronger need for oversight and accountability. This is one of the reasons why government works so slowly; the public service structure has been designed to obstruct and detect and resolve corruption.
Governments have significantly more power than businesses. Businesses only have to follow the law; governments can create them. Governments can declare war. Government can imprison people. Government enforces the judiciary. These responsibilities make government both more powerful but also more difficult to manage. A businessman is not trained for that sort of responsibility.
And I can't end without taking an easy swipe at the current administration. GWB is a terrible businessman and perhaps the worst choice for "CEO of the USA". He managed to financially cripple three oil companies before finally making money on the Texas Rangers; and IMO his profit from the Texas Rangers had nothing to do with his skills as a businessman. Despite having a huge family wealth and an MBA from Harvard, he was worse than mediocre. His track record has spoken for itself. I'm not surprised you wanted the government to be run like a business - it's a common desire amongst free market advocates - but I'm very surprised you chose GWB as the champion for your ideology.