Dem CONGRESS: Investigations - White House Use of Private E-mail Accounts

[L. Coyote]

WAXMAN's House Committe on Oversight and Government Reform Investigations
White House Use of Private E-mail Accounts
http://oversight.house.gov/investigations.asp?ID=251


After three congressional investigations – the investigation into Jack Abramoff’s contacts with the White House, the examination of politicization of the General Services Administration, and the investigation of the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys – brought to light the White House’s extensive use of nongovernmental e-mail accounts to conduct official business, the Committee directed the RNC and the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign to preserve e-mails to or from accounts held by White House officials.

In order to ensure compliance with both the Presidential Records Act and the Hatch Act, the Committee asked the RNC to produce e-mails that related to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes.

Following staff briefings with the White House and the RNC, the Committee has reason to believe that many e-mails related to official government business may have been deleted from the RNC’s servers. As a secondary measure to obtain these e-mails, the Committee asked federal agencies to preserve any e-mails they received from or sent to these political accounts.

Chronology .......

[L. Coyote]

1. Three Congressional investigations: White House use RNC e-mail accounts violated Hatch Act

Waxman letter to Republicans:

....the Committee has been investigating the use of nongovernmental e-mail
accounts by White House officials and possible Presidential Records Act and Hatch Act
violations that may have arisen from that use. Three congressional investigations have found
that White House officials used nongovernmental e-mail accounts to conduct official business or
communicate with agency officials ....

I request that you provide the following information by May 15,2007:

l. Copies of policies, guidance, and procedures governing the use and preservation of the email
accounts maintained by the Bush Cheney '04 campaign that have been used by
White House offrcials, including the October 2003 memorandum describing a 30-day
deletion policy for all e-mails and any directions provided to the campaign's outside
vendor regarding storage and preservation of campaign e-mails;

2. Copies of communications between the campaign and any government entity regarding
the use of campaign e-mail accounts by White House offrcials, including communications
about the preservation, storage, or destruction of communications transmitted using these
accounts;

3. The identity of all White House officials who held Bush Cheney'04 e-mail accounts;

4. The date range for which each of these accounts was active and maintained on a
campaign server;

5. The total number of e-mails sent by each White House official through a Bush Cheney
'04 e-mail account during each calendat year;

6. The total number of e-mails received by each White House official through a Bush
Cheney '04 e-mail account during each calendat year;

7. The total number of e-mails sent by each White House official through a Bush Cheney
'04 e-mail account to a ".gov" e-mail account during each calendar year and

8. The total number of e-mails received by each White House official through a Bush
Cheney '04 e-mail account from a ".gov" e-mail account during each calendar year.

In addition, I request that you provide to the Committee by May 29,2007, all electronic
communications sent or received by White House officials using accounts maintained by the
Bush Cheney '04 campaign that relate to (1) any briefing regarding a past or future federal or
state election that was given at a federal agency or to a group of federal employees assembled
during the work day by a federal employee, or (2) the use or proposed use of federal agencies or
resources to assist a Republican candidate for federal or state office.

.....................

[L. Coyote]

2. 242 Posts Compilation: Mar. 28 >> Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x523978

[L. Coyote]

3. WAXMAN released key e-mails, probable Hatch Act violations negating executive privilige

Waxman Revealed the New Evidence Showing White House Use Of Political E-mail Accounts

In his letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, Waxman revealed e-mail communications providing evidence that White House employees were trying to circumvent the archives system, probable Hatch Act violations.
Scott Jennings E-Mails. Scott Jennings, then deputy director of political affairs ... used “gwb43.com” e-mail to GSA about partisan briefing to political appointees at GSA ...Jennings’s assistant emailed the PPT and wrote: “It is a close hold and we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”

Jennings used his “gwb43.com” account to recruit through the “Kentucky Republican Voice,” a posting from May 2005 advertised 17 vacancies, a second posting sought applicants for SBA, postings encouraged applicants to use “gwb43.com” address.

Susan Ralston, Rove’s executive assistant, invited two lobbyists working for Jack Abramoff to use her RNC e-mail account to avoid “security issues” writing: “I now have an RNC blackbeny ... No security issues like my WH email” and wrote Mr. Abramoff: “.. an RNC laptop at the office for political use. I can access my AOL email when necessary so if you need to send me something that I need to read, you can send to my AOL email and then call or page me to check it.”

Kevin Drum writes ... staffers “using private accounts specifically to evade legitimate congressional oversight” might lose their claim to executive privilege.

[L. Coyote]

4. Raging Caging: What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?

One aspect of the e-mail inquiry has to be the RNC vote-caging e-mails and their role in other USA firing e-mails.

=========================================
Raging Caging: What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?
By Dahlia Lithwick -- Jurisprudence: The law, lawyers, and the court.
Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007, at 6:24 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2167284/pagenum/all/#page_start

... Monica Goodling referred several times to "vote caging" possibly done by Arkansas' soon to be ex-interim, never-confirmed U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin. ... liberal talk radio, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the blogosphere went nuts. ... Is vote caging the most underreported part of this U.S. attorneys scandal or the most over-hyped?

... "Vote caging, what's that?" we e-mailed each other at Slate. ............

Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters ... The Republican National Committee reportedly stopped the practice following a consent decree in a 1986 case. Google the term and you'll quickly arrive at the Wizard of Oz of caging, Greg Palast, investigative reporter and author ...........

Palast supplies evidence linking Tim Griffin, then-research director for the RNC, to this caging plot; specifically, a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party muckety-mucks with the suggestive heading "RE: caging." The e-mails were accidentally sent to a George Bush parody site. .......

.... once it became clear that he would undergo a hearing, why did Griffin sideline himself with the colorful observation that undergoing Senate confirmation would be "like volunteering to stand in front of a firing squad in the middle of a three-ring circus?" ...

I'd also like to hear from Karl and Harriet about why Griffin's elevation to the Arkansas job was so important, yet his confirmation so fraught. If Palast is right, Griffin and vote caging open the door to explaining the White House involvement in the U.S. attorneys purge. And the White House—not the Justice Department—has always been the least-understood part of this story. So, let's bake up some of those warm, crusty subpoenas. Last week was the first time most of us heard about vote caging. It shouldn't be the last.

[L. Coyote]

5. Leahy, Specter Ask Rove Lawyer To Voluntarily Provide “Lost” E-Mails

Leahy, Specter Ask Rove Lawyer To Voluntarily Provide “Lost” E-Mails Related To Panel's Probe
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200705/052507.html

WASHINGTON (Friday, May 25) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent the following letter to Karl Rove’s attorney seeking access to e-mails related to the panel’s ongoing investigation into the firings of U.S. Attorneys and politicization within the Department of Justice.

Rove, a senior political advisor to President Bush, and the White House political operation -- which Rove heads – have been linked to the project that resulted in the unprecedented firings of several well-performing federal prosecutors, according to information gathered by the Committee through documents, interviews and testimony. Several of the dismissed prosecutors have testified under oath and said in public that they were unaware of performance problems and believe political influence was a factor in their firings.

White House officials have claimed many of these Rove e-mails were “lost,” although some of Rove’s e-mails were reportedly shared with the Department of Justice as part of its probe into the Valerie Plame case. The Committee issued a subpoena to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales earlier this month compelling the Department of Justice to provide all Rove e-mails it had in its possession related to the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the fired prosecutors. The Department responded that it retained only the e-mails related to the Plame investigation and returned the electronic media containing the rest of Rove’s e-mails to Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin.

Below is the text of the letter. A PDF is also available. - http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200705/5-25-07%20PJL%20and%20Specter%20Ltr%20to%20Luskin.pdf

May 24, 2007

Robert D. Luskin
Patton Boggs LLP
2550 M Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037

Dear Mr. Luskin:

The White House has confirmed that an unknown number of e-mails, including those of your client, Karl Rove, from both White House accounts and those sent or received using political Republican National Committee accounts, have not been archived. You stated publicly that Mr. Rove's emails were turned over to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the investigation into the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer by officials in the Administration that led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The Department's response to the Committee, however, suggests that these emails were not in fact turned over permanently to Mr. Fitzgerald. According to the Department, Mr. Fitzgerald only obtained access to the "electronic media" containing these emails to do a search for documents related to the Plame investigation and then he returned this electronic media to you in a sealed condition.

Do you retain possession of this electronic media and will you provide the Committee with Mr. Rove's emails related to our investigation voluntarily?

Sincerely

[Ms. Clio]

6. thanks so much for all these threads

so useful.

[bleever]

7. You untangle a big ol' knot by working with individual threads.

K&R for Waxman, and thanks to L. Coyote for all the work lately.

[femrap]

8. Thanks, L. Coyote....

K & R

[L. Coyote]

9. Roger. Thanks.I

did goof off some today:

Are DU readers and participants susceptible to Psychological Operations?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1025175

[L. Coyote]

10. Ethics watchdog accuses Education Department of illegal e-mail use

Ethics watchdog accuses Education Department of illegal e-mail use
Nick Juliano
Published: Wednesday May 16, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Ethics_watchdog_accuses_Education_Department_of_0516.html


A liberal government watchdog group has accused employees in the U.S. Department of Education of illegally using private e-mail accounts to conduct official government business, eliminating the ability for independent oversight through public records access.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the department's inspector general to investigate the use of non-governmental e-mail accounts after it was denied access to e-mails it requested under the Freedom of Information Act. CREW's lawyer was told that department personnel "often use private e-mail addresses," which are not subject to public records requests, according to a press release from the group.

...............