White House: court has no authority to demand e-mails
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Saturday January 17, 2009


A federal court has been rebuffed by the outgoing Bush administration, as the White House has refused an order to search for e-mails that have gone missing.

According to court documents filed Friday, the White House asserts executive privilege on the basis that not all parts of the administration are held to the Federal Records Act. The White House also claimed it had uncovered over 14 million e-mails, but has provided no further details.

According to published reports, responding to the White House, US Magistrate Judge John Facciola reiterated the order, insisting the administration comply and search all systems for the e-mails.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Helen H. Hong had stated at a court hearing that "private contractors had helped find the e-mails by searching through an estimated 60,000 tapes that contain daily recordings of the entire contents of the White House computers as a precaution against an electronic disaster."

With President-elect Obama's inauguration looming just days away, the District Court of the District of Columbia issued the directive instructing the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to search its computers and ordering EOP staff "to surrender any media in their possession that may contain e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005."

In February of 2008, a former Bush administration employee said at a congressional hearing that the White House's "primitive" archiving system may have lost more than a million emails.

Soon after Bush was first elected, as RAW STORY reported on Nov. 24, the White House dismantled the records management system that President Bill Clinton had implemented, replacing it with an unreliable system that led to the massive number of email deletions from White House servers.

Similar communications losses apparently struck former top Bush adviser Karl Rove, when a Republican National Committee lawyer admitted in 2007 that at least four years of emails sent by Rove had "gone missing." The admission came as Congress investigated the controversial dismissals of US Attorneys by the Bush Justice Department.

In February of 2008, a former Bush administration employee said at a congressional hearing that the White House's "primitive" archiving system may have lost more than a million emails over 1,000 days.

Ironically, Cheney's office is missing emails from the very day President Bush told reporters he'd "take care of" whatever staff member had leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Cheney's office also is missing e-mails from Oct. 4, 2003, when the Justice Department demanded that the White House turn over "all documents that relate in any way" to the leak of Plame's identity. E-mails are also missing for the following day, during which the probe intensified and CIA director George Tenet found himself at the center of it, "caught between his loyalty to the president and defending an agency enraged" at Plame's exposure, according to the New York Times.

As US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's probe into the Plame case continued over the next few years, emails continued to disappear, CREW said. More e-mails were missing from Cheney's office on Feb. 16, 2005, when a court ordered reporters who had discussed Plame's identity with administration officials to testify about those conversations.

All in all, some 473 days of emails are missing from various Administration departments, according to a House Democrat who saw a White House presentation on the files.


http://rawstory.com/news/2008/White_House_...ority_0117.html

I don't recall ever seing any emails from anyone else in government. The previous administration, Congress, the courts.

because there was no missing email scandal

Yeah, they had missing FBI files, missing billing records, missing donors, missing interns, missing lawyers. But no missing emails.

They did find the lawyer, with a hole in his head and no bullet.

arrest all the criminals

I did a google search and came up with a reference to a court order directed at the Clinton administration. I am very concerned about viruses so I don't surf sites I don't know. Unfortunately that leaves me out of options. But anyway the email thing apparently dates back to the Clinton admin. If that's the case then it probably was instigated by Republicans.

I thought you were against jails and things like that.

as population control, yes

Guest Random thought...

As far as I know, Bernie Madoff is not in jail.

So let me understand this, if he was caught with a couple of ounces of marijuana,
his butt would've been tossed in the pokie -- like most who get caught with weed.

But because he defrauded many people out of $50 billion (with a "B"),
he gets to avoid such an existence...?

And we're to believe our justice system is blind to class or social status?
TheAngryLiberal


I have a question:
Which "crime" carries a bigger penalty?

Shooting (but not killing) a cop
OR
illegally downloading 200 songs off the Internet?

The laws are crazy because they were written by crooks on the take.

http://www.bartcop.com/

Folks caught with a couple of ounces generally get bail pending trial. Remember that that Bernie is in the same situation - known to be guilty, just like the guy caught with pot, but not yet convicted or even tried.

Does he say that? I just know what I read.

I believe the story is that he told his sons that it was all just one giant Ponzi scheme. When asked by the FBI if there "was some innocent explanation" Bernie replied "there is no innocent explanation".

Still, that's not a (guilty) plea, just a statement to the FBI.

I wonder how much throwing yourself on the mercy of the court with that much money and suicides involved will get you?

20 years, with any luck. Oh BTW, he will be one of those "non violent offenders" that some folks always mention as a problem filling our prisons...

This is all a distraction to take the focus off The Baby Jesus.

The 110th Congress failed America by not impeaching Bush.

This is all a distraction to take the focue off the fact that Democrats have controlled Congress for the past two years and will control Congress for, at least, the next two years.

The 110th Congress, led by Puggs Pelosi and Harry Reid, have failed America by not taking action against the corrupt Bush machine.

This is all a distraction.

Like drug addicts that never actually shot anybody?

For me the issue would be more with victimless crimes, rather than non-violent offenders, though there are certainly too many of those as well. However, it seems clear to me that some non-violent crimes, like his, or other serious non-violent crimes like robbery, have dramatic far reaching consequences for many people. This is certainly radically different from the run of the mill non-violent offender with too many parking tickets, or possession of marijuana, or something similarly more routine and typical. I doubt anyone is saying that people who commit serious crimes like robbery shouldn't get jail time. It's the bulk of the people with minor crimes that could be addressed in a more economical manner, IMHO.

Beat me. You have to wonder what they are trying to hide.

The bulk of the people with minor crimes get probation around here. Then they fark that up, and end up in jail for a few months.

that's cool. you should put that disclaimer on all your posts

most drug addicts are hooked by their doctors and aren't in prison

treason

He could be sentenced to community service... working on Social Security and Medicare finances where he would have mad skillz...