More Details from the Interim EMail Report

by emptywheel

Random details--in no particular order.

First, here's where Henry plans to go from here, to fill in the 18-minute gap (the headings below are mine, the text the Committee's).

Get the Records from Other Agencies
First, the records of federal agencies should be examined to assess whether they may contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC. The Committee has already written to 25 federal agencies to inquire about the e-mail records they may have retained from White House officials who used RNC and Bush Cheney ’04 e-mail accounts. Preliminary responses from the agencies indicate that they may have preserved official communications that were destroyed by the RNC.

Go after Fredo
Second, the Committee should investigate what former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales knew about the use of political e-mail accounts by White House officials. If Susan Ralston’s testimony to the Committee is accurate, there is evidence that Mr. Gonzales or counsels working in his office knew in 2001 that Karl Rove was using his RNC e-mail account to communicate about official business, but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove’s official communications.

Go after the RNC
Third, the Committee may need to issue compulsory process to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign. The campaign has informed the Committee that it provided e-mail accounts to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the Committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

I kind of like this--rather than go after Rove directly, go after him via other channels.

Lurita Doan, Again

Waxman's committee has gotten emails that are a clear follow-up on Lurita Doan's effort to politicize GSA.

The GSA inventory also lists several e-mails in February 2007 between Scott Jennings in the Office of Political Affairs and a GSA official regarding a “San Francisco Fed Building Opening.”

This is the event that one of Doan's subordinates wanted to prevent Nancy Pelosi from attending (and possibly get Bush to attend). While the report doesn't say it, this suggests they've got some follow-up evidence against Doan, in addition to the testimony of her subordinates.

It's More than 18 Minutes

The report describes all the emails of particular emails as having been destroyed--something that was clear from Ralston's testimony.

One indication of the scale of the loss of White House e-mail is the fact that the RNC has retained no e-mail messages whatsoever for 51 of the 88 White House officials with RNC e-mail accounts.

Post-Plame Emails

Apparently, the RNC only has emails dating to after the Plame investigation began:

The first e-mail sent by Mr. Rove that the RNC has preserved is dated November 26, 2003.

Not to mention much of the Abramoff scandal.

Update: This is a really interesting "coinkydink" that Jeff noticed:

The first e-mail sent by Mr. Rove that the RNC has preserved is dated November 26, 2003.

Hmm.  Hubris, p. 377-78:

A hard copy of the Hadley-Rove e-mail turned over to Fitzgerald (which was independently obvtained by the authors) showed that it had been printed out of Rove's White House computer on November 25, 2003. One of Rove's assistant's, B.J. Goergen, had searched the computer that day at the request of Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence. After all, as Isikoff and Corn's book tells us (pp. 401-2), Rove's office gave Luskin a folder full of emails that included the Hadley-Rove one in late November 2003, and Luskin just hadn't noticed the Hadley-Rove email until october 2004, right before Rove was going to go back in front of the grand jury, right after Cooper had been held in contempt and was headed for trouble, i.e. likely testimony.

Oh who knows, I'm sure it's all coincidence.

One other note: the report also explains that the first emails saved from Goergen, the Assistant who printed out the Hadley email, were dated October 17, 2003. Again, after the investigation begins, almost certainly after Rove first testified...

 

Comments

[P J Evans]

I see it's time to send more encouragement to Henry. (Go, Henry, go!)

[Rayne]

Marcy, you crack me up! If this is your definition of "light blogging", perish the thought of mere mortals surviving one of your deluges!!

There was a comment left at FDL last evening by a techie who said that Waxman had been made aware of a little-known federal facility that backs up much of federal communications, including email, suggesting that Waxman has already gotten a very good grasp on what the RNC is actively covering up and obstructing. I do hope this is true.

[Jeff]

The first e-mail sent by Mr. Rove that the RNC has preserved is dated November 26, 2003.

Hmm. Hubris, p. 377-78:

A hard copy of the Hadley-Rove e-mail turned over to Fitzgerald (which was independently obvtained by the authors) showed that it had been printed out of Rove's White House computer on November 25, 2003. One of Rove's assistant's, B.J. Goergen, had searched the computer that day at the request of Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence. After all, as Isikoff and Corn's book tells us (pp. 401-2), Rove's office gave Luskin a folder full of emails that included the Hadley-Rove one in late November 2003, and Luskin just hadn't noticed the Hadley-Rove email until october 2004, right before Rove was going to go back in front of the grand jury, right after Cooper had been held in contempt and was headed for trouble, i.e. likely testimony.

Oh who knows, I'm sure it's all coincidence.

[SaltinWound]

Yes, why the empty threats about light blogging? Are you just too proud to admit you need us?

[Ishmael]

Marcy - on the "Magic E-mail" of November 25, 2003 - I presume that when Fitzgerald accepted it as, if not necessarily exculpatory, making a perjury prosecution difficult, he just didn't rely on a paper print-out - he was given a mirror image of Rove's hard drive, so there would have been some independent proof as to when it was created and sent - or am I wrong?

[Jeff]

One other interesting little tidbit in this connection. B.J. Goergen, the Rove assistant that Isikoff and Corn say did the printing out (and Ishmael, note that you're off on the wrong track here, November 25 was the date the email was printed out for document production purposes, not the date it was created - though the more general point is true, that presumably Fitzgerald knows all about all of this and made the charging decisions he made): Waxman's interim report notes that the first RNC email to or from him they have is October 17, 2003. Just worth noting. And as an aside, the list says that the first Rove email they have is from early 2002, but that must be an email to Rove not from him, and presumably was recovered from someone else.

[Bob Schacht]

Marcy--
Thanks for your blizzard of wonderful blogs!
But one thing keeps bothering me-- the "18 minutes." I thought it was an 18 *day* gap in the e-mails turned over by the government that was the current issue (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/21/snow-gap/). I thought that the "18 minute" gap was an old reference to the gap in the famous Nixon tape.

Bob in HI

[Sailmaker]

Any hope of subpoenaing the servers? The hard drives? How about the Pentagon's TIA (or whatever they are calling it now)? I know, in the TIA case it would be fruit from the poisoned tree, but maybe only the evidence for those granted immunity would be used?

Another thing: Sara Taylor mentioned that they used KarlRove.com, so that one needs to be added to the list of email accounts that get subpoenaed.

[tekel]

this is light blogging. EW is just posting all of these articles from THE FUTURE, where she already knows the outcome! All bow before emptywheel, the first blogging time-traveller!

[tekel]

Bob: I thought that the "18 minute" gap was an old reference to the gap in the famous Nixon tape.

just so, my good man. I think this is a literary allusion, trying to draw the Bush -> Nixon -> Disgrace picture in terms that even CNN bobbleheads can understand.

[Bob Schacht]

18-Minutes-- "a literary allusion, trying to draw the Bush -> Nixon -> Disgrace picture in terms that even CNN bobbleheads can understand."

I thought we had to speak slowly in simple declarative sentences without allusive language when speaking to MSM bobble heads in order for them to understand us correctly.
{/snark}

Bob in HI

[MarkH]

To: CNN
Reference: Bush mafia

Hiya CNN,

How's it going?

Heard about the criminals in the White House?
Yeah, go check 'em out. Especially look into Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. They're pretty evil.

Later,

[Jodi]

Mr Rove's lawyer has indicated several times that Mr Fitzgerald has all Mr Rove's emails, and images of all his hard drives and an image of his blackberry.

There is nothing there folks save perhaps a lot of wishful thinking.

[bmaz]

Is Jodi intellectually dishonest or mentally disoriented? You decide. Freepatriot, I request a ruling!

[Mary]

None of the Hadley e-mail info really "works" with what Ralston says, does it?

She says she and Karl were doing the searches and turning things over to White House Counsel. Never mentions them getting a call from Luskin. Ralston says she and Karl did numerous searches. Yet the printouts for Luskin's file get done by someone else? Does Hubris resolve whether or not Hadley turned over his copy to WH Counsel and if, in addition to Luskin's file, the email was in what Rove delivered to WH Counsel?

It seems like an odd carve out on the searches to have Ralston not be the one to handle the printouts/file that went to Luskin. And really - none of it makes sense. Never has. I don't understand how it bought Rove a bye. He's a source for Novak - pressuring McClellan to fib about his involvement - guilty sounding email to Hadley - definitely guilty sounding rendition of the exchange by Cooper (double super secret). He's always seemed more obviously guilty than Libby to me, but that's on a surface review.

It does make me wish some Congresscritter would ask McNulty and Margolis about their supervision of the Plame investigation and just dot the i-s and cross the t-s. After all, April 27 is when Walton's opinion comes out pretty much spelling out that the Spec Pros is subject to supervision, termination, etc. and his opinion pretty much sets up what always bothered me about the ability to modify delegations as well as terminate - both at will (the reason I wasn't crazy about in-housing). Walton's opinion also negates application of the Spec Pros CFRs, which negates the supervisory reporting requirements those CFRs.

About two weeks later, Rove (who floated this story a loooooooooong time back as his out and hadn't been "out" yet) gets his letter and normally chatty Luskin won't release the letter.

Then, if the live bloggin at FDL was a correct encapsulation (and I know it's hard to get things exactly correct, typing on the fly) Fitzgerald sounded a little oddly aggressive on the issue of contacting Margolis before the Libby indictment. He could have just said "it may not have been clear whether I was obligated to contact him or not, but we have been very careful to be respectful of procedure and so we did contact him ... yada yada" He could have framed the contact with Margolis before the Libby indictment as a positive on his inferior officer case.

Instead, it reads like he digs in and, seemingly without need to be provocative on this point, it sounds like he kind of ended up saying, "hey - I didn't HAVE to tell him anything, I did tell him, but not because I was OBLIGATED to"

Almost as if he is trying to cover a base, somewhere, that the Spec Pros is NOT obligated to run indictments by his supervisor. Which doesn't really help his inferior officer case and it seemed a bit gratuitious to highlight that he didn't feel obligated to report prior to indicting. It's not much, but it could make you wonder if he did another courtesy report to his new supervisor, McNulty, and - based on Walton's opinion - was shut down and there's a bit of a struggle going on. You might hypothesize Fitzgerald trying to say - you can fire me, but that's all you can do, and his supervisor saying, nope - I can also modify your delegation to make you subject to my ok on whether you go forward or not. And everyone sitting back to see if "fire at will" ends up being enough of a supervisory power, without more. Although, IMO, the 510 delegation left a lot more power with the supervisor than just at-will firing.

I'm mostly sure there's nothing there, but I would like to hear Margolis and McNulty confirm that the delegation to Margolis was never called back to McNulty. Or, if it was called back to the new DAG, McNulyt, when and how and why etc. And I'd like confirmation from both or anyone else they know of who ended up with the supervisory capacity - that no one intervened in, interfered with or overruled the Spec Pros on any fronts or for any decisions and that they have not changed his delegation in any manner etc. All the follow ups too.

I'm sure they probably haven't. I was never that optimistic about Spec Pros going after anyone else and even if he did want to go after others, as for conspiracy - he'd be smart to slow walk it until the end or past end of the President's term if statutes of limitation allow. And now, with appointment challenges, he'd be smart to slwo walk it past the judicial resolution of those challenges (so double jeopardy issues won't attach if a different prosecutor has to come in later).

But right now, unless he's got a lot of powder in reserve - the will for further charges and traction has pretty much been allowed to be destroyed anyway. So I don't really think there has been interference, but I don't like threads dangling, especially when the guys are being called in and questioned anyway.

Be nice to get it tied up.

[low-tech cyclist (formerly RT)]

What Sailmaker said: if I were Waxman, I'd want the RNC email server. Not a mirror, but the original. (Let them back everything up onto another server, then put the backup online and hand the original over to Waxman's techies.)

I think we all know that unless you've gone out of your way to clean a hard drive, 'deleting' a file means nothing; all it means is that you've killed the pointer telling you where on your hard drive the file is stored. But the file is still there until it's been written over, and maybe even after that has theoretically happened.

[freepatriot]

Mr Rove's lawyer has indicated several times that Mr Fitzgerald has all Mr Rove's emails, and images of all his hard drives and an image of his blackberry.

There is nothing there folks save perhaps a lot of wishful thinking.

Posted by: shit stain | June 19, 2007 at 13:37

the shit stain worships at the fountain of Cognative Dissonance

anything that doesn't fit the shit stain's "beliefs" just doesn't exist in the shit stain's world

hence, the shit stain can admit that scooter lied, but the shit stain can't provide a viable answer to the question of WHY scooter lied

shit stain can't give a reason for scooter to lie because the only answer is that scooter lied to obstruct justice

if that were true, then Marcy Wheeler, Joe Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald, and everybody here who ever laughed at the shit stain would be proven right

the shit stain just couldn't live with that

therefore, scooter's motive to lie doesn't exist in shit stain's world

cognative dissonance, it's the new God of the repuglican party