How the defenders of Justice are breaking the law

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FOX NEWS IN CHARGE OF THE HENHOUSE

By Eric Malone

This is Your Country.

This is Your Country’s Shadow Government on Drugs.

Last week we found out that there are Five Million E-mails missing from the White House (from March 2003 to October 2005), some of them involving the case of the Eight Fired U.S. Attorneys about which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will testify on Tuesday.  Then Department of Justice (DOJ) Spokesliar Dana Perino came out to explain that this is the “first administration to operate in the era of instant communications.”

Gee, really?  I could have sworn that Oliver North and Richard Secord got caught with their hands in the Iran-Contra cookie jar when they thought they had deleted incriminating emails from the IBM PROFS system, only to have them turn up on the servers in the basement of the White House back in 1987.

And this is not the first time that Señor Torture has had “email troubles.”  When Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went looking for Karl Rove emails on the Valerie Plame CIA leak, he issued a subpoena to then-White House counsel Gonzales on January 22, 2004.  Thoughtful Alberto gave everyone at the White House 12-hours notice to clean out their hard drives and purge their servers before delivering the subpoena.

And this is the guy who is in charge of making sure Justice is served?

Federal law (the Presidential Records Act) requires that all official White House communications must be archived and preserved.  If they are deleted, that’s right, it’s a felony crime. Even if you work for the cops at DOJ.

And if you are using a *private* email account for official business, well, guess what?  That’s illegal too, and it appears that’s exactly what happened here.  Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, and Alberto Gonzales were figuring out how to get lawyers who would prosecute Democrats right before the election (and exonerate Republicans) and they were doing it on domain names like gwb43.com and rnchq.org (Republican National Committee Headquarters).  The CREW Report on Friday makes it clear that the folks in the Oval Office have “willfully dismantled” the email archiving system put in place by the Clinton Administration.

Why?  So their nasty little notes about breaking the law couldn’t be traced and could easily be erased.

One bright spot:  Since the missing emails were not on official White House servers (we’re told), that means that the felons cannot hide behind the skirt of “Executive Privilege.”  When Senator Patrick Leahy offered the assistance of “a teenage kid in my neighborhood” who could go find the lost data, Perino snapped back: “I didn’t know Senator Leahy is also an IT expert.” Meee-ow!

So far, the mercenary oil merchants running our country have turned over some 3000 pages of documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  And they were “selective, incomplete, and highly redacted.”  (Blacked out with a Magic Marker.)  Oh, and get this:

The White House says that it may not be able to comply with turning over all the documents requested due to “privacy issues.”

Well.

It’s nice to know that the government that has been tapping our phones and reading our email is now worried about “privacy issues!”

So not to worry, says Dana Perino.  “We are looking for the missing emails, and they will be turned over to the Republican National Committee.”  Wait a minute.  Shouldn’t they be turned over to the investigating committees?  At least there we know they wouldn’t wind up being triple-deleted by reformatting the hard disks.

     The Juicy Parts

What could possibly be in those emails that is worth risking a prison sentence by obstructing justice and denying a subpoena?

Let’s take a look at what we’ve found so far.

• March 6, 2007:  Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolino emailed Dan Bartlett and Cathie Martin with advice about changing the discussion on the fired U.S. Attorneys:  “We are trying to muddy the coverage up a bit by trying to put the focus on the process in which they were told” they were about to be canned.
• Feb. 28, 2007:  Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling emailed to Rove lackey Tim Griffin (the new U.S. Attorney in Arkansas who replaced fired Attorney Bud Cummins):  “We have to emphasize the normalcy in your case.”  In other words, “Nothing to see here, keep moving along.”
• Feb. 28, 2007:  Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias (New Mexico) held a news conference stating that Senator Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson (both R-N.M.) had pressured him to prosecute Democrats on “voter fraud” without evidence.
  • Scott Jennings emailed his boss Karl Rove:  “…Domenici’s idea is not to respond and hopefully make this a one-day story…Unfortunately, I do not think that they can make an allegation such as this go away so easily.”  “Make this a one-day story?”  Can you spell “coverup?”
• January 2007:  Monica Goodling (who just resigned from DOJ) emailed about Rove’s buddy, the new U.S. Attorney in Arkansas:  “Here are the talkers (talking points) on Griffin, as well as a narrative that can be used by staff…I think it would be helpful for all of the Rs to have it.”  So Monica was writing the official lie and making sure everyone was on the same page.

 

And I saved the best for last.

• January 12, 2007:  Justice Department official Rebecca Seidel and Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson were scheduled to meet with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to discuss the U. S. Attorney firings.  Seidel emailed Sampson:
  • “Kyle, I understand [Deputy Attorney General] Paul McNulty thinks we should go up in person? Do you want us to set that up? Not sure how we do today if that is the case given how booked the day is. Phone call easier, and may be easier to get out of (i.e. not trapped up there) when she doesn't get the info she wants (i.e. why they were fired).”

 

Obviously Seidel knew that she and Sampson were about to lie to Senator Feinstein about the firings.

More juicy tidbits as we worm our way through all the redactions.

John “Can we get a high-volume discount at Kinko’s for printing subpoenas?” Conyers

Authors Bio:
Eric Malone has been writing about politics with a sardonic sense of humor through more than one apocalyptic Administration. He is a subversive dedicated to revolution through thoughtful laughter.