Abuse of Power and Culture of Corruption

Phantom Emails: The Eighteen Week Gap

Posted by Michael Link on April 13, 2007 at 01:26 PM

The scandal at the Justice Department and the White House concerning the firing of several U.S. Attorneys continues to raise eyebrows, most recently with the "missing" emails of White House staffers using an email system maintained by the Republican National Committee (RNC).

This is yet another spin-off scandal that's a product of the original one. With this igniting a firestorm of controversy, and with Alberto Gonzales testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, consider this a guide to the phantom emails.

A couple dozen White House employees are using an email system maintained by the RNC, which itself is the subject of much scrutiny, as they may have used it for official business. Karl Rove, for instance, "reportedly uses his RNC-provided account for approximately 95% of his communication." In August of 2004, due to "unspecified legal inquiries" that many believe involves Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation, the Republican National Committee stopped automatically deleting emails from the White House employees using their system.

Rep. Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, previously asked the RNC (and the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign) to retain copies of the emails sent by White House officials after discovering that they had been used in discussion with the scandal surrounding the firings of the U.S. Attorneys.

This is where it gets particularly interesting. In a recent letter from Rep. Waxman yesterday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he notes that the RNC's chief council says that "although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove." And then there's this nugget:

Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

That's one possible explanation for what happened to the pre-2005 emails, says the RNC's chief council. After 2005, once the RNC put into place an automatic archive policy for Rove that removed his ability to personally delete emails, the emails presumably exist.

So now there's a gap in emails, from August 2004 to presumably early 2005, that's being compared to the famous missing 18 minute gap of the Nixon tapes.

But are the emails really missing? Well, for the answer to that question, take a look at what Senator Leahy had to say:

There are also additional notes on the side that merit attention:

  • Originally, the White House claimed that "only a handful" of White House employees were using the RNC email system. It turns out that over the years, that number has been closer to 50.

  • In addition to the phantom RNC emails, CREW, an ethics watchdog group, claims that "Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005." These are unrelated to the RNC emails, and were seemingly cited in a letter from Patrick Fitzgerald to Scooter Libby's attorney.

  • John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has demanded that the RNC hand over emails related to the U.S. Attorney scandal. In his letter, he states the following:

    We have also been advised that there may be RNC e-mail traffic relating to Republican Party concerns about the United States Attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, prior to his announcing, on the eve of the hotly contested 2006 gubernatorial election, that he was indicting an official in the incumbent Democratic governor's administration.

So there you go. That's where we find ourselves today. More seems to be coming out on a daily basis again, and there was just a big document dump from the Justice Department related to the U.S. Attorney scandal, so stay tuned.

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