"They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. “You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”
“Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced. This sounds like the Administration’s version of ‘the dog ate my homework.’”
Now to Froomkin's article:
Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.
The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.
Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.
The White House yesterday said it has no idea how many e-mails have been lost.
Why was the business of the White House done over the RNC email system in the first place? Something to hide? Makes you wonder, doesn't it. Let's look at more of the article:
In an afternoon conference call with reporters, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said. "The oversight of that wasn't aggressive enough." And individual White House staffers "did not do a good enough job of following existing preservation policy -- or seeking guidance."
Said Stanzel: "I guess the bottom line is that our policy at the White House was not clear enough for employees."
But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.
"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."
And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."
Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered.
Stanzel said that "some people" may have used their non-government accounts for official business due to "an abundance of caution" in order to violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government e-mail for overtly political purposes, such as fundraising -- and due to "logistical convenience."
Let's skip down in the article to the point where we find out an unknown lawyer is also on this conference call:
Stanzel was joined in the conference call by a White House lawyer who Stanzel insisted not be referred to by name. 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 flaunted 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 that has now been issued that further clarifies the obligations of those staffers who have RNC accounts. Stanzel also described another recent change; White House staffers no longer have the ability to delete their RNC e-mail under any circumstances.
Among the many questions Stanzel ducked was this one from me: Had this never come up as an issue in the previous six years? Had no one ever raised a concern about such an obvious evasion of the most basic White House document-preservation rules? Stanzel wouldn't say.
So an unknown lawyer was there to make sure Stanzel didn't inadvertantly say something. And now that they have been discovered using the RNC email account, the rules have changed. And in the meantime, where are the missing emails and what do they say?
UPDATE: From CREW:
BREAKING: White House lost Over FIVE MILLION e-mails in two year period
Today, CREW issued a new report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the PRA, and made the shocking new disclosure that the Bush White House has lost over FIVE MILLION e-mails in a two year period. The report also details the legal issues behind the growing controversy over the White
House e-mail scandal.
More at the CREW Link.
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