Three weeks ago, the White House took the notion of executive privilege to what I thought was its logical extreme. As it turns out I wasn’t even close. The principle of executive privilege, while fluid, addresses a president’s need for candor from advisors. As the president recently said, “[I]f the staff of a President operated […]
If the political establishment wasn’t suspicious before, it is now. A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members yesterday that the RNC is missing at least four years’ worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Henry Waxman directed government agencies today to “preserve e-mails received from or sent to non-governmental e-mail accounts used by White House staffers.” Good idea. * RNC counsel Rob Kelner said today that the RNC stopped deleting all of the White House staff’s emails in response to “unspecified legal inquiries” […]
I noted this morning that the White House, in its desperate attempt to spin its controversial alternate communications system, ran into a problem: last week, spokesperson Dana Perino claimed only a “handful” of White House staffers used RNC email accounts. This morning we learned that 22 current WH aides — and 50 staffers altogether — […]
I know there have been occasionally strained relations between House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and progressive activists, but I think he’s on firm ground this week, urging the caucus to show some resolve in the political fight against the White House over war funding. This is the right message at the right time. […]
It’s one thing for White House staffers to break the law preserving documents; it’s another to have to admit it publicly; but it’s something altogether different when those emails come back from the dead. “[D]eleted” doesn’t mean what it used to, according to computer forensic experts. Indeed, deleted emails and files, even years-old ones, are […]
The idea in Iraq has been to extend the stability and security of the Green Zone to the rest of Baghdad and beyond. Instead, we’re seeing the opposite — the AP reports that a suicide bomber “blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria Thursday, killing at least eight people — including three lawmakers — […]
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy has listened to the White House’s explanation for countless missing emails that the Bush gang can’t produce because they’ve been using an alternate RNC communications system. He’s not impressed. President Bush’s aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a […]
The Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin participated in a White House conference call with journalists yesterday, on which White House spokesman Scott Stanzel explained that countless emails from presidential aides are “lost.” Stanzel acknowledged that staffers neglected to follow official policy (i.e., the law) related to the communications system, but spread the blame around, suggesting staffers […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson disclosed yesterday that he was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2004, but he is in remission. “I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms,” Thompson […]