White House Avoiding Email Archivial Process
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 5:50 pm
DAR
This should actually be a very big deal:
White House Use of Outside Email Accounts Questioned
By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 26 March 2007
Emails released by the Department of Justice over the past two weeks in conjunction with a Congressional investigation into the firings of eight US attorneys show that White House officials have communicated with DOJ staffers about the attorney purge, using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Using alternative email accounts also creates the appearance of impropriety, lawmakers charged Monday, because it allows White House officials to avoid the usual archival process and the automatic paper trail that is established when they use White House email servers to conduct business. Emails sent through the RNC server can be destroyed.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 states that the records of a president, his immediate staff, and specific areas of the Executive Office of the President belong to the United States, not to the individual president or his staff. The act further states that the president must "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as presidential records pursuant to the requirements of this section and other provisions of law."
In letters sent Monday to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, urged the two groups to preserve all emails sent by White House officials from their servers because of their relevance to Congressional probes, including the US attorney scandal.
Waxman added that his committee "has questions about who has access to these email records and how the campaign protects them from destruction or tampering," according to the letters he sent to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign.
"Such emails written in the conduct of White House business would appear to be governmental records subject to preservation and eventual public disclosure," Waxman wrote.
Jennings' immediate boss is Karl Rove, White House deputy chief of staff, who, according to a report Friday in the National Journal, conducts 95 percent of White House business using an email account maintained by the RNC.
...
Waxman said the Oversight Committee first discovered administration officials were using nongovernmental email accounts during its investigation into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his contacts with the White House.
"That investigation found that many of the email exchanges between Jack Abramoff and White House officials were conducted via nongovernmental email accounts," Waxman said in his letters to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign.... The Abramoff investigation found that in multiple instances, Susan Ralston, Karl Rove's executive assistant, exchanged emails with Jack Abramoff regarding official government business while using accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee and the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign."
...
Waxman said that in certain cases White House officials were using alternative email accounts to avoid creating an automatic paper trail of their communications about hot-button political issues.
The rest
This should actually be a very big deal:
White House Use of Outside Email Accounts Questioned
By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 26 March 2007
Emails released by the Department of Justice over the past two weeks in conjunction with a Congressional investigation into the firings of eight US attorneys show that White House officials have communicated with DOJ staffers about the attorney purge, using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Using alternative email accounts also creates the appearance of impropriety, lawmakers charged Monday, because it allows White House officials to avoid the usual archival process and the automatic paper trail that is established when they use White House email servers to conduct business. Emails sent through the RNC server can be destroyed.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 states that the records of a president, his immediate staff, and specific areas of the Executive Office of the President belong to the United States, not to the individual president or his staff. The act further states that the president must "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as presidential records pursuant to the requirements of this section and other provisions of law."
In letters sent Monday to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, urged the two groups to preserve all emails sent by White House officials from their servers because of their relevance to Congressional probes, including the US attorney scandal.
Waxman added that his committee "has questions about who has access to these email records and how the campaign protects them from destruction or tampering," according to the letters he sent to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign.
"Such emails written in the conduct of White House business would appear to be governmental records subject to preservation and eventual public disclosure," Waxman wrote.
Jennings' immediate boss is Karl Rove, White House deputy chief of staff, who, according to a report Friday in the National Journal, conducts 95 percent of White House business using an email account maintained by the RNC.
...
Waxman said the Oversight Committee first discovered administration officials were using nongovernmental email accounts during its investigation into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his contacts with the White House.
"That investigation found that many of the email exchanges between Jack Abramoff and White House officials were conducted via nongovernmental email accounts," Waxman said in his letters to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign.... The Abramoff investigation found that in multiple instances, Susan Ralston, Karl Rove's executive assistant, exchanged emails with Jack Abramoff regarding official government business while using accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee and the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign."
...
Waxman said that in certain cases White House officials were using alternative email accounts to avoid creating an automatic paper trail of their communications about hot-button political issues.
The rest