White House: E-mails may have been lost

White House: E-mails may have been lost

seattletimes.nwsource.com

WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that it might have lost what could amount to thousands of e-mails sent through a private system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.

The e-mails were considered potentially critical evidence in inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics might have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

(visit the link for the full news article)

That's pretty convenient. Sounds a lot like destruction of evidence. The story does not give timing on when the emails were lost, but it does say this system has been used for 6 years. Pretty suspicious that it fails just when it is needed as evidence.

seattletimes.nwsource.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Lol, they will probably hang some IT security guy with this one.....

Heads Will Roll......

"The last time I remember seeing the files was at the correspondents dinner, I had them in my coat pocket and I started dancing when Rove was doing his rapdance and poof! the files were missing."

Right...they lost them. Funny, if any commercial entity in the country loses vital emails...it's a massive lawsuit and fraud charges.

However, here's the real kicker here. WHO CARES? It's the President's perogative to fire these guys whenever he sees fit. So, why are we spending taxpayer money to investigate something that isn't even a crime?

Lost you say! How very, very convenient.....

Wonder which genius came up with that getout tactic! Funny how it never seemed to work with my teachers, just ended up getting a punishment and having to do the work anyway.

I read about this first a couple of weeks ago. Seems Rove and others were using their own system outside of the official servers which would indicate a deliberate attempt to hide things from investigation and oversight.

Seems like everyone agrees on the obvious; fraud.

Regards,
Maestro

[edit on 12-4-2007 by collielikethedog]

I've never been so proud to be a Democrat... I might even vote next year. First off, those emails have gone through so many servers, there is no way they are deleted. If we can pull files from a terrorist's half-burnt computer that have been deleted in all conventional ways, than we can find those emails. These emails are probably in dozens of computers hard-drives, back-up drives, and RAM memory. This is a ludacris and poorly thought out lie, which is uniform with the rest of the administration's behaviour. This was brought up today by Senator Dealy, unfortunately the people we have working to uncover terrorists' files are working to cover our governments files. And BTW, this is a crime. Not only is it a clear cut effort to destroy and tamper w/ evidence - these files are the equivelant to the nixon tapes, and I hope they are found in their entirety, and expose the illegal and monopolizing efforts of our wonderful republican government.

Originally posted by collielikethedog
I've never been so proud to be a Democrat... I might even vote next year.

Uhhh, Sandy Berger ring a bell? , the entire political system is involved in this type of activity, left right whatever, as far as voting I encourage you to do so but please do not portray the Democrats as an honest political party, in my lifetime I have yet to find a politcal party, (in power), who was honest with the citizens of the US.

BTW, what Berger did was a crime also........

Orig. posted by collielikethedogFirst off, those emails have gone through so many servers, there is no way they are deleted...
This was brought up today by Senator Dealy...

I think you mean Patrick Leahy, D-VT.

I happen to agree with Leahy. I am a lowly office worker and I keep all my emails. This second server used for political discussions was probably a noble idea to start with, but people quickly discovered that it can be used to circumvent the law.

Originally posted by collielikethedog
And BTW, this is a crime. Not only is it a clear cut effort to destroy and tamper w/ evidence - these files are the equivelant to the nixon tapes,

There's some major differences here that you're not considering. First of all, the nixon tapes contained evidence of a crime. No crime has been committed here, the President is completely within his rights to reassign these positions whenever he sees fit. Second, the actual act of losing these emails isn't a crime because it can't be considered evidence when there's no crime to charge. This is nothing more than a policital attack by the dems using taxpayer money which outta be illegal because it's really using public funds for campaign purposes.

Originally posted by Wellsee
I happen to agree with Leahy. I am a lowly office worker and I keep all my emails.

I'm not sure where you work, but I can pretty confidently say that if you work in any kind of reasonably sized company, you're probably breaking policy. I work for a fortune 200 company and we have strict policies in place regarding saving email. If any communication is not required by law to be kept, it is to be disposed of as soon as it's no longer relevant. In most situations, this means that very few emails older than a few weeks are kept and almost none older than a month. Those who are found with pst files stashed can be disciplined up to termination.

The fact still remains, that we are investigating something that isn't a crime. This reminds me a lot of the recent Valerie Plame investigations. In the end, it was found that no crime was committed, and they hung somebody over something stupid. Seems like it's being tried again in hopes that somebody will have a bad memory and get a perjury charge.

How much Kool aid did you drink,Blue Triangle?

I advise you to go to the C.R.E.W> website to see where the allegations of criminal offenses probably have taken place.

5 million emails deleted and they can't be retrieved. How stupid are these people? It's a gap, don't you get it.

Read this and maybe you will understand. If you are a Bush loyalist or a republican you are about to face the biggest LIE in what you invested. People so incompetent they left a huge gap for the whole world to see.

You are playing with semantics,Blue Triangle. I urge you to look at the outline of Without a Trace. It's damaging and it's alot worse than leaking a CIA agent's operative identity. And it makes Sandy Berger look like Elmo in comparison. The president you chose is not one who comprehends law at all. And it's not wise to go to bat for him,Blue Triangle. Wake up Man. Because it's alot worse than you realize. Cover up,manipulation and more lies than you can shake a stick at.



www.citizensforethics.org...

WITHOUT A TRACE covers the following areas:

Presidential Records Act (PRA): Enacted in 1978, requires the president to preserve all presidential records, which are defined as those records relating to the “activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of [the president’s] constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties. . .”

Clinton Administration Policy: In 1993, then-Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary John Podesta sent a memo to all presidential staff explaining that the PRA required all staff members to maintain all records, including emails. Podesta stated that the use of external email networks was prohibited because records would not be saved as required. The 1997 White House Manual and a 2000 memo issued by Mark Lindsay, then Assistant to the President for Management and Administration echoed this policy, requiring staff to use only the White House email system for official communications.

Bush Administration Policy: The Bush Administration has refused to make public its record-keeping policy. A confidential source provided CREW with a 2002 document indicating the use of “non-EOP messaging-enabled mechanisms should not be used for official business.”

Bush Administration Practice: In the wake of the scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff and the fired U.S. Attorneys, emails were released showing that top White House staffers routinely used Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts to conduct official business. For example, J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, used an RNC account to communicate with the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding the appointments of new U.S. Attorneys. Similarly, Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove, used RNC email accounts to communicate with Abramoff about appointments to the Department of the Interior.


PRA Violations: 1) The administration failed to implement adequate record-keeping systems to archive presidential email records;

2) two confidential sources independently informed CREW that the administration abandoned a plan to recover more than five million missing emails;

3) White House staff used outside email accounts to conduct presidential business, ensuring that emails were not adequately preserved. In fact, former Abramoff associate Kevin Ring said in an email to Abramoff that Ralston had told him not to send emails to her official White House account “because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc.”

Hatch Act Excuse: The administration has claimed that Rove, Jennings and other staffers use RNC accounts to avoid violating the Hatch Act. This is untrue. The Hatch Act prohibits White House staff from using official resources for purely “political” purposes. “Political” refers to the president’s role as either a candidate for office or as the leader of his party. Email communications regarding presidential appointments for U.S. Attorney and Interior Department positions clearly fall within the PRA as making appointment is an official presidential function and does not relate to the president’s role as party leader.

*** Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions.

Did you happen to listen to Dana Perino today? Trainwreck, BlueTriangle. And it's going to get worse than Plame or Lewinski debacle ever did.

And that gap is so damaging there's nothing anyone can do to spin it.



l

[edit on 12-4-2007 by MRGERBIK]

Originally posted by MRGERBIK
Did you happen to listen to Dana Perino today

I think her exact words were: "We screwed up! We are trying everything to get those emails back"

ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.