For too long the Bush/Cheney Administration and their subordinates have operated under the impression that the law was ‘merely a suggestion’ and that Bush had the divine right to ignore any rules that got in the way of his GWOT. Now that his enablers in congress are out of power we’re finally learning exactly how corrupt the reign of our 43rd president has really been.
In our first taste of what’s to come Henry Waxman’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has released it’s interim report on the RNC/Bush Administration email ’situation’. So what did they find?
- The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed.
Initially the White House maintained that “only a handful” of RNC accounts were being used for official business. That number has since ballooned to 88 and includes such people as Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President. - White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts.
Hundreds of thousands of email messages were either sent or received. Of these Karl Rove is noted as having 140,216 emails, of which 75,374 were either sent to or received from “.gov” accounts. And those that were saved? They’ve all got noticeable gaps comparable to the famous Nixon Tape’s “18-minute gap”. - There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC.
Of the 88 White House officials with RNC accounts only 37 had any records saved what-so-ever. - There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records.
In short:
The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.
The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC. Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.
The RNC’s response to all of this?
“It is troubling that Henry Waxman’s committee jumped the gun and appears to be representing Democrats’ partisan spin as fact,” said Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the RNC. “Not only have we been clear that we are continuing our efforts to search for e-mails, but there is no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not already found would be of an official nature,”
Let’s break all of this down shall we? The White House knowingly bypassed federal document and communications preservation requirements with the help of the Republican National Committee so they could talk about who knows what. The RNC can say what they want about this being a “partisan” attack and the White House can spin until they fall over, but the simple fact of the matter is that the law was broken. Not only was it broken once, it was systematically broken hundreds of thousands of times. Richard Blair of the All Spin Zone’s got it right: why isn’t anyone in jail over this?
For you Right Wing Bloggers: You can either choose to condemn the Bush Administration and the RNC for blatantly attempting to cover up their actions, try to defend them, or remain silent as you so far have. You can label this all as one big partisan witch hunt but just imagine, for one second, that these actions weren’t those of Bush or the RNC but instead those of a Democratic president and the DNC. Is your response different this time? Maybe you should start to wonder why.
The rule of law is not partisan; I’d expect the party that prides itself as the “Law and Order” party to live up to it’s name and police it’s own. But then John Cole of Balloon Juice reminds us of the administration and their blogger defenders cardinal rule: “If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Well, from the looks of things so far I’d say they’ve got something to hide.
Read also (courtesy of MemeOrandum): Christy Harden Smith (Firedoglake); Justin Gardner (Donklephant); Mr. M (Comments from Left Field); Cernig (The Newshoggers); (The Carpetbagger Report) – always good comments; and Steve M. (No More Mister Nice Blog)
Thanks to the blog Democratic Convention or Bust! for the pingback.
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10:07 pm on June 18th, 2007 1
“Well, from the looks of things so far I’d say they’ve got something to hide.”
And something to worry about.
See, it works.
5:41 am on June 19th, 2007 2
[...] on the “use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials” that has been garnering quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere and the news. Key points [...]
9:20 am on June 19th, 2007 3
I’m not a right wing blogger, but I play one in my office.
Dustin, I completely agree, how dare this administration use RNC email accounts.
That would lead the uninformed to believe they were Republicans.
11:46 am on June 19th, 2007 4
Chuck: The issue isn’t that they’re Republicans using an RNC email account. The issue is that government officials who are required by law to keep records of all communications have been using a secondary communications system specifically to get around that law.
So I’ll repeat my question: would you be so flippant if these were the actions of a Democratic administration?
12:10 pm on June 19th, 2007 5
Dustin – Of course republicans wouldn’t “be so flippant if these were the actions of a Democratic administration” – Duh, that’s politics.
But if it were a democrat administration, would you have even cared enough to write about it?
In comparison to actions by the last democrat administration (e.g. stealing and destroying classified documents), these actions pale into irrelevancy.
12:23 pm on June 19th, 2007 6
And this would be why, regardless of the fact I share most democratic views, I regard myself as an independent liberal.
To be perfectly honest I was only 17 when the Clinton Administration left office and other than the later actions of Sandy Berger I’m not exactly sure which instances you’re referring to. If it is, in fact, Berger there’s a large difference between the actions of one individual and the systematic usurpation of binding law.
That being said you can be sure that even in the case of Berger I’d be out for blood and looking to see how high things went. Corruption at the federal level may be a fact of life but that’s no excuse to ignore it, no matter who’s the culprit. If ‘my side’ engages in the same type of actions you can bed I’ll “care enough to write about it”.
12:49 pm on June 19th, 2007 7
Heh… there should be little question by now whether or not we’d hammer a Democrat when a Dem does wrong; we frequently clobber the HELL out of them ’round here
12:53 pm on June 19th, 2007 8
Dustin
Lighten up buddy. I really was agreeing with you. My comment had more to do with how little this administration has come to resemble REAL Republicans.
I’d forgotten that I haven’t posted here in awhile, and GTL has brought in a new class from his alma mater, Karl Marx university. Not to disparage that fine institution. How ’bout that gymnastics program?
3:53 pm on June 19th, 2007 9
It’s pretty good. I prefer the rock climbing club myself
I apologize if it seems like I snapped at you, I’d just gotten done reading today’s batch of RedState and Right Wing News comments before yours… THEY weren’t joking or pointing out how little the Bush administration resembles ‘real republicans’ when they said similar comments.
I suppose that my reaction could probably be attributed to the fact that my generation (those of us who grew up after the 94 ‘revolution’) hasn’t ever seen real Republican politicians. For us this crop of neoconservatives, theocrats, bully pundits, and corporate-minded crooks they are the Republicans. Needless to say I’m really hoping the party can fix itself…
8:49 pm on June 19th, 2007 10
Dustin,
I, being just a smidge older than you, haven’t seen a “real” Republican or Democrat — at least not of the caliber some of the older bloggers discuss. I have quite a few friends who are trying to push me to the Democrat-side now that I’ve lost any residual respect for the Republican party. However, I don’t find the Democrat party any more respectable.
Clinton and his wife were involved in things more scandalously wrong than illicit relations with interns; or lying about it afterward. However, this does not make Bush look any better. It only makes America look that much worse.
Why do we put up with any of it? That’s what I don’t understand. The apathy, the sheer, mindless apathy of it all, is unfathomable to me.
*sigh*
Anyway, I did want to take a quick moment to ask you what you think about Doyle. Personally, I must admit an interest in how independent you are when the question comes closer to home.
9:26 pm on June 19th, 2007 11
That’s an easy one. I think he’s a corrupted and craven politician prone to saying whatever he thinks people want to hear and then doing what his donors (i.e. the casino crap he’s pulled) want. I’ve never voted for the guy and, in fact, can’t stand him.
I’m proud to say that Feingold’s my senator but I can’t say the same about my governor.
While I don’t think things are quite that bad I agree, we’re not doing well as a nation. I blame the moneyed interests and 24-hour new driven apathy… but I’m sure I could find a whole library of books and articles devoted to the topic. Not sure how to fix it… wish I did.
11:27 pm on June 19th, 2007 12
Dustin,
“I’ve never voted for the guy and, in fact, can’t stand him.”
Bravo! Were you presence on GTL not enough to speak for you, your description of Doyle certainly does. Personally, I’m not a Feingold fan, but the parallels between Bush and Doyle, imo, are a matter of scale and power. God forbid Doyle ever get the presidency!
“Not sure how to fix it… wish I did.”
I thought I did, with VOID, but our membership is not growing and interest in actually acting on the conviction is stagnating.