The Dog Ate My Homework
The White House announced yesterday that they have lost thousands of email messages from a private account supplied by the Republican National Committee. The story from the Los Angeles Times said that Karl Rove and 50 other top officials used it. In fact Karl Rove used this system about 95% of the time to send his messages. It’s not hard to guess that Democrats from the house and senate aren’t pleased.
"This is a remarkable admission that raises serious legal and security issues," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the role of electoral politics in administration policymaking. "The White House has an obligation to disclose all the information it has."
The New York Times quotes Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee saying: “This sounds like the administration’s version of the dog ate my homework.” He also added: “I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information.”
The White House didn’t explain how these messages were lost. They did explain why Rove and other White House personnel were using a separate system to begin with. They were using the separate system so they wouldn’t violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for partisan purposes. The Los Angeles Times points out this dual system creates another problem for the White House.
Loss of the e-mail files would create a potential legal problem for the Bush White House: compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which was passed in 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal that enveloped Richard M. Nixon's presidency. The law was designed to ensure that presidential papers were preserved for historical and investigative purposes.
Democrats believe that Rove and other officials were using the RNC email system to circumvent having record keeping requirements. Let’s say you wanted to fire some U.S. Attorneys but you don’t want a record of what you actually said or did. If it’s on the White House system it has to be given to the investigative committees, while if it’s on the RNC system, oops, what happened to those thousands of emails. If this administration weren’t so completely incompetent, you could be 100% sure they “lost” these emails on purpose. Well I’m just 99% sure they did. I’m sure Nixon is in hell applauding his political decedents.
"This is a remarkable admission that raises serious legal and security issues," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the role of electoral politics in administration policymaking. "The White House has an obligation to disclose all the information it has."
The New York Times quotes Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee saying: “This sounds like the administration’s version of the dog ate my homework.” He also added: “I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information.”
The White House didn’t explain how these messages were lost. They did explain why Rove and other White House personnel were using a separate system to begin with. They were using the separate system so they wouldn’t violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for partisan purposes. The Los Angeles Times points out this dual system creates another problem for the White House.
Loss of the e-mail files would create a potential legal problem for the Bush White House: compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which was passed in 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal that enveloped Richard M. Nixon's presidency. The law was designed to ensure that presidential papers were preserved for historical and investigative purposes.
Democrats believe that Rove and other officials were using the RNC email system to circumvent having record keeping requirements. Let’s say you wanted to fire some U.S. Attorneys but you don’t want a record of what you actually said or did. If it’s on the White House system it has to be given to the investigative committees, while if it’s on the RNC system, oops, what happened to those thousands of emails. If this administration weren’t so completely incompetent, you could be 100% sure they “lost” these emails on purpose. Well I’m just 99% sure they did. I’m sure Nixon is in hell applauding his political decedents.
posted by kbear | 3:24 PM
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