Leahy: ‘E-mails don’t get lost’

April 12, 2007

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 powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

“They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

“You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vermont “Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.” […] “E-mails don’t get lost,” Leahy insisted. “These are just e-mails they don’t want to bring forward.”

I guess we can put Leahy in the “skeptical” category.

Indeed, the AP didn’t mention it, but Leahy also tore into the White House in a speech on the Senate floor this morning, comparing the growing prosecutor purge scandal to Watergate.

“Now we are learning that the ‘off book’ communications they were having about these actions, by using Republican political email addresses, have not been preserved,” Leahy said, adding, “Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced.”

Maybe Dems should do more to emphasize the similarities? The missing emails are like Rose Mary Woods’ recordings, the purge of prosecutors is like the Saturday Night Massacre, we’ve already had years of suggestions that if the president does it, it’s not illegal….

Nevertheless, Leahy didn’t just give speeches today; his Judiciary Committee was plenty busy.

A U.S. congressional panel investigating the firing of federal prosecutors authorized subpoenas on Thursday for e-mails the White House has declared may be missing. […]

On a voice vote, the Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas for these and other White House documents as well as for records it has sought from the Justice Department.

The panel also authorized subpoenas for Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella, and Scott Jennings, an aide to Rove, permitting Leahy to sign subpoenas compelling the Bush administration to surrender hundreds of new documents and force Moschella and Jennings to reveal their roles in the firings.

The votes authorize subpoenas to be issued if the administration records are not turned over and if Moschella and Jennings decline to appear before the panel.

It’s almost a shame the subpoenas were approved on a voice vote; I would have enjoyed seeing just how many Republicans on the committee are willing to consider the recent evidence and say, “No, let’s not ask the White House to answer more questions.”

For a few weeks, the White House tried to seize the offensive on this scandal. It was a waste of time — the controversy is snowballing, Senate Dems smell blood, and the Bush gang is left looking like the gang that can’t shoot straight. When Pat Leahy is on the Senate floor accusing the White House of lying and concealing evidence, you know it’s a big deal.

Stay tuned.

This “sinking ship” known as the Bush Administration no longer plays the parallel to the Titanic;” they’re more like the Bismarck. Staying the course means running in circles because the rudders are skewed, and the incessant pounding they’re getting from Congress is tearing away their ability to fight back—the only thing left to do being to “scuttle the ship” so as to prevent its capture.

Pretty much like the RNC emails.—and we all know where the Bismarck lies now….

  • Deep in the heart of Left Blogistan, it’s often hard to get a sense of how much certain stories are impacting out there in Couchpotatostan. My guess is this story will start to hit a lot harder, with accusations of deliberate obstruction etc. going around. Here’s hoping.

  • They appear to be a bunch of high school kids:

    ‘We’ll use RNC e-mails and they’ll never figure it out, ya’ know?”

    “Cool man, and if they do we’ll just tell ’em the files were purged, ya’ know?”

    “Yeah, man, they’ll never figure it out, ya’ know?”

    What’s really scary is that the country is being run by a bunch of yahoos who think they can pull this crap and get away with it.

  • It’s almost a shame the subpoenas were approved on a voice vote; I would have enjoyed seeing just how many Republicans on the committee are willing to consider the recent evidence and say, “No, let’s not ask the White House to answer more questions.”

    I’m not an expert on parliamentary procedure but doesn’t a voice vote mean no one said no?

  • Voice vote means the chairman said “All in favor say ‘aye'” then “All opposed say ‘nay'”. You listen to the room and if it seems that one side was said by more people than the other, you pass the motion.

    If it’s too close (like you’d assume in a straight party-line vote) to tell by listening to the room you ask for a show of hands or other “countable” voting method.

    In a debating society like the Senate you’d expect committees to have a lot of voice votes. It allows the people who want a motion to pass but don’t want to go on record as supporting it some cover, they can say ‘nay’ very quietly or even ‘aye’ and then tell all the world they voted against the motion with no way to hold them accountable.

    There’s another way of getting a vote: the chairmans says “Hearing no objections…the motion carries.” If one person says “I object” during the pause you must then hold a voice vote or more typically a show of hands or other countable vote.

    (I’m not a parlimentary expert, but back in the dark ages when I was in the FFA I was the chairman of a competitive parlimentary procedure team. Take this for what you paid for it.)

  • Thanks Chuck for the explanation of the parlimentary vote procedure. Makes total sense to allow the Republicans some room to hide. That way they are more apt to cooperate. That’s better than forcing them and then having trouble to get anything done because they have to play to their constituency.

    The reality is that if something passes, it means that at least a few republicans agreed. It should not matter to us who they are, let them explain it to their constituency.

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