{"id":10508,"date":"2007-04-13T15:50:47","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T19:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10508.html"},"modified":"2007-04-13T15:50:47","modified_gmt":"2007-04-13T19:50:47","slug":"whered-karls-emails-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/whered-karls-emails-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Where’d Karl’s emails go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, where are we with Karl Rove’s “lost” emails? Let’s turn to Dan Froomkin<\/a> for a quick overview.<\/p>\n

From 2001 to 2004, the RNC’s highly unusual “document retention” policy was to intentionally destroy all e-mails that were more than 30 days old. In the summer of 2004, due to “unspecified legal inquiries,” the RNC changed its policy by allowing — but not mandating — the indefinite retention of e-mails sent and received by White House staffers on their RNC accounts. That was just around the time special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s investigation of White House involvement in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity was kicking into high gear.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2005, when RNC officials discovered that all of Rove’s RNC e-mails were still getting deleted, presumably by Rove himself, they blocked his ability — and his ability alone — to do that. Other White House staffers could still delete at will, just not Rove.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, Rove’s lawyer added to the story by arguing<\/a> that Rove didn’t intentionally<\/i> delete his emails from the RNC server.<\/p>\n

Karl Rove’s lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush’s chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored server, saying Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law. […]<\/p>\n

“His understanding starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived,” Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why on earth would he believe that?
\n
\nIndeed, Rove’s understanding, “starting very, very early in the administration,” should have been the exact opposite. Why? Because he was given a copy of the White House policy<\/a>, which tells staffers to comply with the law (the Presidential Records Act).<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

The handbook further explains: “The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At what point, exactly, did Rove see this and think, “I can keep using a private email account outside the White House for official business and it’ll work out fine”? Is the White House really prepared to argue that Rove has the reading comprehension of a second grader and got confused when he saw “only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication”?<\/p>\n

The RNC doesn’t know where Rove’s emails are; the White House doesn’t know; and Rove’s lawyer doesn’t know (though he’s certain his client didn’t intentionally<\/i> delete anything). And Rove’s argument is that he was sure the private emails he wasn’t supposed to be sending were being archived, even when they weren’t, and even after his emails were given special treatment due to an ongoing White House criminal investigation.<\/p>\n

Got all that? Nothing suspicious here at all; move along, move along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, where are we with Karl Rove’s “lost” emails? Let’s turn to Dan Froomkin for a quick overview. From 2001 to 2004, the RNC’s highly unusual “document retention” policy was to intentionally destroy all e-mails that were more than 30 days old. In the summer of 2004, due to “unspecified legal inquiries,” the RNC changed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}