Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted — lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas — due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.
The leading culprit appears to be President Bush’s enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.
Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely — but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.
The White House yesterday said it has no idea how many e-mails have been lost.
… when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with."As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."
The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."
And if that wasn’t clear enough, the handbook notes — as was the case in the Clinton administration — that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."
With the email story and the attorney firings, we know what they’ve done, we have a good idea what they’re doing now, and there’s a clear law and procedure for following that law. The ball is in our court to make this one stick ["Our" means the Senate, the House, the Democrats, the Progressives, the bloggers, the Media, and everyone else who loves this country].
If we’re going to cure cancer, we have to follow the rules: early detection, aggressive therapy, high levels of vigilance. If there is going to be an "it" in this story [a Watergate "it"], this is "it."
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