Henry Waxman

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the White House for a peek at the records they are legally required to keep.

Lo and behold, there were gaps in White House e-mail archives that just happened to coincide with KEY DATES in the period when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence manipulation. And even more damaging weeks of legal defense work.

They are being sued for destroying as many as 10 million White House e-mails, in violation of the Presidential Records Act, and are in court arguing that they can't be sued because the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply to... the President.

Bush spokesman Tony Fratto denied that the White House had lost millions of emails today:

Q: Tony, on the subject, could you address the missing White House emails and the law suit? It is a subject of reports this morning. Are there in fact the emails missing? What's the likelihood of their recovery versus the --

MR. FRATTO: I think our review of this, and you saw the court filing on this, and our declaration in response to the judge's questions -- I think to the best of what all the analysis we've been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing; there's no evidence of that. There's no -- we tried to reconstruct some of the work that went into a chart that was entered into court records and could not replicate that or could not authenticate the correctness of the data in that chart. And from everything that we can tell, our analysis of our backup systems, we have no reason to believe that any email at all are missing.

Q So where are they?

MR. FRATTO: Where are what?

Q Where are part of --

MR. FRATTO: Which email? Look, no one will tell you categorically about any system -- any system, whether it's your system at Bloomberg or our system here at the White House, past and present, categorically that data cannot be missing. All of our review of it and all of the our understanding of the way that the backup system works, it's a backup system that captures existing data, it captures things that are stored and archived. We have no reason to believe that there's any data missing at all -- and we've certainly found no evidence of any data missing.

Q So that would mean that if you were asked, you would be in a position to comply with a request to produce those documents?

MR. FRATTO: Yes, which documents? I mean, if someone has a specific request for documents and they would like us to search for particular emails, of course we could search for emails -- and we have. And we have been responsive to requests in the past.

Q And they have been produced? They do exist?

MR. FRATTO: We have produced emails upon request, either for our own internal review or sometimes in response to investigations that have taken place on the Hill. I mean, we have been able to go back and find email. The question is, have we been able to find a large mass of missing email? No, we have not located somewhere in the system the absence of something. We have not been able to note the absence of anything in our databases.*

Q You're saying they're there, you just haven't located them yet?

MR. FRATTO: No, I'm saying we have no evidence that shows that anything at all is missing. And you're saying, well, have you found the missing emails -- and we say we have no evidence that anything is missing.

Bad liars often say too much with too much certainty. This exchange was just such a case. The White House has previously told people, including Justice Department investigator Patrick Fitzgerald, that they had lost emails.

That's how they kept Jenny Mayfield and Cathie Martin out of jail for not turning over what appears to be email responsive to subpoena. So if you now say that there are no emails missing, it means all that legal testimony the White House has given--some of it under oath--is incorrect. It leaves the door open for response. Swooping in to find the truth came America's intrepid investigative journalists like Bill O'Reilly... I'm kidding. America's media was clutching their pearls about Britney Spears. But Democrat Henry Waxman did swoop in. With a letter.

Dear Mr. Fielding:

At today’s White House press briefing, Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto was asked about allegations that White House e-mails have been lost from White House servers. He stated in response: “we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing.”

This statement is contrary to information that the White House provided to the Committee staff in a briefing on September 19, 2007. At this briefing, the White House showed staff a chart indicating that there were 473 days for which various entities in the Executive Office of the President had no archived e-mails. According to the chart, the days with no archived e-mails included:

For the White House Office: December 17, 2003, December 20, 2003, December 21, 2003, January 9, 2004, January 10, 2004, January 11, 2004, January 29, 2004, February 1, 2004, February 2, 2004, February 3, 2004, February 7, 2004, and February 8, 2004.

For the Office of the Vice President: September 12, 2003, October 1, 2003, October 2, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 5, 2003, January 29, 2004, January 30, 2004, January 31, 2004, February 7, 2004, February 8, 2004, February 15, 2005, February 16, 2005, February 17, 2005, May 21, 2005, May 22, 2005, May 23, 2005.

For the Council on Environmental Quality: 81 days, including the entire period between November 1, 2003 through January 11, 2004.

For the Council of Economic Advisers: 103 days, including the entire period between November 2, 2003 through January 11, 2004.

For the Office of Management and Budget: 59 days, including the entire period between November 1, 2003 through December 9, 2003.

For the U.S. Trade Representative: 73 days, including the entire period between February 11, 2004 through April 18, 2004.

The White House officials conducting the briefing took this chart with them. They also indicated that the White House was doing an additional analysis to determine whether the information in the chart was accurate. In a letter I sent to you on December 20, 2007, I asked for any new information or analyses about the problem of missing e-mails. I have not received a response to this letter.

Mr. Fratto’s statements have added to the considerable confusion that exists regarding the status of White House efforts to preserve e-mails. To help clarify the situation, I request your testimony and the testimony of Alan Swendiman, the Director of the Office of Administration, at a hearing on February 15, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

Now, Fred Fielding, who survived Nixon's 18 minute gap, is going to have to come and testify about why all the legal representations the White House made in the past about missing emails are no longer operative.

"Administration": Nothings missing.
Waxman: What about what you admitted was missing?
"Administration": Like what?
Waxman: How about October 3, 2003?
"Administration": Oh, yeah, that's missing.
Waxman: Hm
"Administration": What're going to do?
Waxman: Tsk Tsk.
Country: (pause) Impeach the bastards!

Again, the Administration is being sued for destroying as many as 10 million White House e-mails, in violation of the Presidential Records Act, and are in court arguing that they can't be sued because the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply to... the President.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California is testing the impartiality of Bush's shiny new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey. Fredo, the last weasel who called himself Attorney General operated as the personal lawyer for his compadre, George Bush, national interest be damned.  Mukasey? We shall see.

Waxman wrote a letter as Chairman of the Oversight Committee to Mukasey complaining that the White House has prevented Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald from handing in to the Committee notes from the investigation of the Valerie Plame CIA leak crime. The notes in question are of interviews with White House officials, including Mr. Bush.

I recognize that President Bush and his counsel may not want this information provided to Congress. But the role of the Attorney General is to administer the laws with impartiality. The Justice department provided the exact same information to Congress during the Clinton Administration. There is no special standard for President Bush that exempts him and his senior advisors from responsible congressional oversight.

In a few days, when Mukasey turns around and Cheneys Waxman, maybe then Waxman'll remember that there in fact is an overarching 'special standard' that exempts President Bush and his senior advisors from responsible congressional oversight. 

What it's called has moved beyond academic, vague Nixonian theory of the "Unitary Executive" or "Imperial Presidency", it's not even snide IOKIYARism.  No, the doctrine now governing this Presidency and capping these past 8 years is one of "Fuck Yourself."

So, what will Waxman do?  More strong words in a separate envelope? 

Or, what if the Chairs of the House Appropriations Committee, Dave Obey and John Murtha convened hearings about Bush's latest signing statement on a military appropriations bill?  You didn't hear about that?  Oh yeah...

And after the detained Bush administration official petitions the Supreme Court for writ of habeas corpus, and  the courts dismiss the case under the "political question doctrine," as they did in the Reagan-era Burford case in 1982, then the witness can serve as vivid reminder that when America elects Republicans, the Republicans break everything, the law, the world, cities, decency and thus we should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, do it again...

Or Waxman could write another letter.