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Thousands of White House E-mails Deleted
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Apr 12, 2007 03:55 PM
from the they-have-also-misplaced-their-homework dept.
from the they-have-also-misplaced-their-homework dept.
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."
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Oh come now (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh come now (Score:5, Informative)
Quoting Leahy [yahoo.com]:
"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."
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Miraculously.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty much where I was going... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nonononono (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Miraculously.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Miraculously.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Miraculously.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, impeaching Bush does not automatically mean he is removed from office. I remind you that Clinton was impeached for similar reasons (perjury) and remained in office.
At this point I don't even think it matters whether or not the White House is being honest with the investigation committee. If they are being honest, then they are incredibly inept and don't deserve to run this country. If they aren't being honest they are a bunch of filthly liars who don't deserve to run this country. Same thing with all the intelligence goofs with the Iraq invasion. It doesn't matter much if they were lying about the intelligence or intentionally misleading the Senate. Either way, they are either dishonest or inept.
Choosing not to impeach and seek justice based on the "next guy" is incredibly silly and un-American. Even if the decision is made to remove Bush from office, let Cheney be the President and let him be under the same scrutiny I say. This administration should not get away with being inept or dishonest, and they certainly shouldn't get away with being inept at being dishonest.
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Re:Miraculously.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminal trials routinely have more than one defendant. An impeachment takes the form of a criminal trial so there should be no problem impeaching both the President and Vice-President simultaneously.
I don't see that happening over the emails though. The Democrats are not going to impeach anyone unless there is a high probability that they can convict. At the moment it is doubtful that there would be more than five Republican Senators that have even serously thought about backing impeachment.
Gonzalez is another matter entirely. Unless he resigns soon he will be impeached. In his case the arithmetic is very different. A trial in the Senate would inevitably turn into a proxy for the impeachment of Bush. If the outcome of that trial was a 60:40 vote to convict the press would spend the next 18 months asking if the Democrats had found the seven votes they need to convict Bush. That is such a downside for the administration it cannot be allowed to happen. Gonzalez will go the minute Democrats start impeachment procedings.
The only situation in which Bush is likely to be impeached is if he launches an attack against Iran. That is more likely than not to end up an even greater fiasco than Iraq. Iran has more military hardware in the region than the US can call on. They have highly effective Chinese anti-ship missiles.
If the vulcans persuade Bush that bombing Iran would be a cakewalk it is sure to be another poorly planned fiasco premised on the idea that the enemy is a bunch of ingorant cowards who will roll at the first sign of a fight - yeah just like they did in the Iran-Iraq war when they lost a million lives.
If Bush bombs and the Iranians respond by sinking the Nimitz, closing the straits of Hormuz and launching a ground attack against Basra an impeachment becomes a very real likelihood. Short of that level of stupidity it is not likely to happen.
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N.S.A. Restores BushCo Syndicate Mail: +1, Fun (Score:5, Funny)
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 [whitehouse.org].
Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
Typical outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Typical outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
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Blame the spamfilter (Score:5, Insightful)
Deleted? What about the redundancy? What about the (Score:5, Interesting)
so... (Score:5, Funny)
Bush administration totally corrupted (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Tradition (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_tapes [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Enro
Wiretapping? (Score:5, Funny)
Presidential Records Act? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Executive privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
On the plus side, I bet it will be tough to claim executive privilege on those e-mails.
Disconnect between WH statements and law (Score:5, Informative)
Yesterday he said this:
Here are the specifics of what is required by the Hatch Act [osc.gov]. 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.
Some people (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Our government has become everything that the first settlers to America were trying to get away from.
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Re:Some people (Score:5, Funny)
Right now I'm homeless. If I owned a gun the police would've taken it long ago and probably made me a felon for carrying it.
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Re:Is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Parallels... (Score:5, Insightful)
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