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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120507J.shtml
Waxman, Mukasey and Ten Million Missing Emails
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 05 December 2007
A government watchdog group now says at least ten million
White House emails, which may contain information about the leak of
Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA status, have been destroyed by the
Bush administration.
In a report from April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington (CREW) detailed a massive hole in the White House email
records. The report, titled "Without a Trace: The Missing White House
Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act," accused
the Bush administration of destroying "more than 5 million" emails and
failing to attempt to recover them.
According to CREW, their sources now tell them the number of
missing emails is at least ten million.
Anne Weisman, CREW's chief counsel, said the revised estimate
"highlights that this is a very serious and systematic problem at the
White House." Currently CREW and The National Security Archives are
suing the Bush administration in an attempt to force the
administration to restore the missing documents from backup tapes.
The missing emails were discovered in the fall of 2005 when
staff at the White House Office of Administration were attempting to
respond to a subpoena from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald for any
White House records relating to the leak of Plame Wilson's identity.
The CREW report includes a letter from Fitzgerald that shows
his investigation was hampered by problems with the White House email
archiving system. "... we have learned that not all email of the
office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President
for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal
archiving process on the White House computer system," Fitzgerald
wrote in his letter to I. Lewis Libby's attorneys.
The report detailed two separate possible violations of the
Presidential Records Act (PRA), a law passed in the wake of the
Watergate scandal that requires the preservation of all presidential
documents for the historical record. The first violation was the use
of unofficial email accounts by White House staff to conduct official
business. This revelation made headlines during the US attorney
firings investigation, which remains ongoing.
The second potential violation, which received little media
coverage, was the destruction of internal emails at the White House.
According to CREW, two independent White House insiders have confirmed
a massive systematic failure occurred that wiped out "hundreds of
days" of email records between March 2003 and October 2005.
When the report was first issued in April, White House
spokesperson Dana Perino was asked specifically about the millions of
missing emails. She stated there was a system in place that archived
emails sent to and from the Executive Office of the President (EOP)
and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) that complied with the PRA.
She suggested any email that had been deleted would be available on
backup tapes that serve as a second level of defense by storing data
in case of any failure.
However, according to the CREW report, the archiving system
the White House used has been inadequate and a plan to restore the
destroyed records was never acted upon.
During the press conference, Perino said she was not "taking
issue with [CREW's] conclusions at this point. We're checking into
them."
According to an August letter from Congressman Henry Waxman
(D-California) to White House counsel Fred Fielding, White House staff
informed the Committee "an unknown number" of White House emails were
unaccounted for. The White House apparently confirmed there were days
where no White House email had been preserved.
The emails in question come directly from EOP, and could
include communications between the president, vice president and their
high-level staff. These missing emails take on new significance as
Waxman continues to pursue investigative documents collected during
special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of
Plame Wilson's CIA status and the subsequent cover-up by top Bush
administration officials.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, the main investigative committee in the House of
Representatives, Waxman has been battling the White House for
documents relating to the many ongoing investigations his committee is
conducting. He has accused the Bush administration of stonewalling
because of their resistance to turn over documents.
It is clear Waxman is hot on the trail of documents that could
explain who was involved in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity. In a
letter to Fitzgerald, Waxman specifically requested "Documents
describing the transmission of information about Plame Wilson's CIA
employment status to or from any official at the White House, Office
of the Vice President, Central Intelligence Agency, or State
Department ... "
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Waxman said
the White House has been preventing Fitzgerald from turning documents
over to Congress, specifically "documents relating to White House
officials."
According to Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of
American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, this type of
"stonewalling" has been "characteristic of the Bush Administration"
and has been "effective in inhibiting Congressional oversight."
Aftergood pointed out this letter from Waxman to Attorney General
Michael Mukasey is the first such challenge of its kind for the
recently confirmed AG. Aftergood said the letter is "a test of
[Mukasey's] attitude towards disclosure and towards Congress."
Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for
Truthout.
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Waxman, Mukasey and Ten Million Missing Emails
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 05 December 2007
A government watchdog group now says at least ten million
White House emails, which may contain information about the leak of
Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA status, have been destroyed by the
Bush administration.
In a report from April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington (CREW) detailed a massive hole in the White House email
records. The report, titled "Without a Trace: The Missing White House
Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act," accused
the Bush administration of destroying "more than 5 million" emails and
failing to attempt to recover them.
According to CREW, their sources now tell them the number of
missing emails is at least ten million.
Anne Weisman, CREW's chief counsel, said the revised estimate
"highlights that this is a very serious and systematic problem at the
White House." Currently CREW and The National Security Archives are
suing the Bush administration in an attempt to force the
administration to restore the missing documents from backup tapes.
The missing emails were discovered in the fall of 2005 when
staff at the White House Office of Administration were attempting to
respond to a subpoena from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald for any
White House records relating to the leak of Plame Wilson's identity.
The CREW report includes a letter from Fitzgerald that shows
his investigation was hampered by problems with the White House email
archiving system. "... we have learned that not all email of the
office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President
for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal
archiving process on the White House computer system," Fitzgerald
wrote in his letter to I. Lewis Libby's attorneys.
The report detailed two separate possible violations of the
Presidential Records Act (PRA), a law passed in the wake of the
Watergate scandal that requires the preservation of all presidential
documents for the historical record. The first violation was the use
of unofficial email accounts by White House staff to conduct official
business. This revelation made headlines during the US attorney
firings investigation, which remains ongoing.
The second potential violation, which received little media
coverage, was the destruction of internal emails at the White House.
According to CREW, two independent White House insiders have confirmed
a massive systematic failure occurred that wiped out "hundreds of
days" of email records between March 2003 and October 2005.
When the report was first issued in April, White House
spokesperson Dana Perino was asked specifically about the millions of
missing emails. She stated there was a system in place that archived
emails sent to and from the Executive Office of the President (EOP)
and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) that complied with the PRA.
She suggested any email that had been deleted would be available on
backup tapes that serve as a second level of defense by storing data
in case of any failure.
However, according to the CREW report, the archiving system
the White House used has been inadequate and a plan to restore the
destroyed records was never acted upon.
During the press conference, Perino said she was not "taking
issue with [CREW's] conclusions at this point. We're checking into
them."
According to an August letter from Congressman Henry Waxman
(D-California) to White House counsel Fred Fielding, White House staff
informed the Committee "an unknown number" of White House emails were
unaccounted for. The White House apparently confirmed there were days
where no White House email had been preserved.
The emails in question come directly from EOP, and could
include communications between the president, vice president and their
high-level staff. These missing emails take on new significance as
Waxman continues to pursue investigative documents collected during
special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of
Plame Wilson's CIA status and the subsequent cover-up by top Bush
administration officials.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, the main investigative committee in the House of
Representatives, Waxman has been battling the White House for
documents relating to the many ongoing investigations his committee is
conducting. He has accused the Bush administration of stonewalling
because of their resistance to turn over documents.
It is clear Waxman is hot on the trail of documents that could
explain who was involved in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity. In a
letter to Fitzgerald, Waxman specifically requested "Documents
describing the transmission of information about Plame Wilson's CIA
employment status to or from any official at the White House, Office
of the Vice President, Central Intelligence Agency, or State
Department ... "
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Waxman said
the White House has been preventing Fitzgerald from turning documents
over to Congress, specifically "documents relating to White House
officials."
According to Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of
American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, this type of
"stonewalling" has been "characteristic of the Bush Administration"
and has been "effective in inhibiting Congressional oversight."
Aftergood pointed out this letter from Waxman to Attorney General
Michael Mukasey is the first such challenge of its kind for the
recently confirmed AG. Aftergood said the letter is "a test of
[Mukasey's] attitude towards disclosure and towards Congress."
Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for
Truthout.
-------
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