Was this done to Circumvent Presidential Records Act?
By Kenneth J. Theisen, 6/19/07
According to a report released June 18, 2007 from the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee, it appears that the White House
routinely used e-mail accounts set up by the Republican National Committee
(RNC) instead of regular White House e-mail accounts to circumvent the Presidential
Records Act (PRA). Under the law the Bush regime is required to maintain a
documentary record of presidential decisions and deliberations which includes
e-mails. But since the regime came to power in 2001, it has consistently hid
its actions behind a veil of secrecy, often in violation of various laws.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came under particular fire
in this report. According to the report,
there is evidence that while Gonzales was the White House Counsel his office
“may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts
for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential
records.” Of course creating legal
theories or ways to violate the law for the regime is nothing new for
Gonzales. This is one of the reasons
President Bush consistently defends him despite calls for his resignation or
firing. If nothing else, Gonzales has been particularly loyal to the regime and
Bush has returned that loyalty.
The House Oversight panel has been investigating the use of
RNC e-mail accounts ever since it was revealed that various White House
officials used these accounts to discuss the firings of several U.S. Attorneys by
the Department of Justice in 2006.
Congressional investigators were told by the RNC that Karl
Rove sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails between 2002 and 2007 on the
RNC account created for him. Susan Ralston, Rove’s former aide told the
investigators, in a deposition, that Rove used his political e-mail account
“most of the time.” In
addition to Rove, the report indicates that at least 87 White House officials
had RNC e-mail accounts.
Unfortunately for the public, and fortunately for the
regime, many of the e-mails sent or received by these various officials have
disappeared due to deliberate deletions by officials or under the RNC’s
deletion policy. The report states, “As a result of these policies,
potentially hundreds of thousands of White House e-mails have been destroyed,
many of which may be presidential records.”
The report does not speculate on the motives that senior White
House officials may have had for deleting their emails, but chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee Senator Patrick Leahy stated, “It is troubling that so
many senior White House officials, including Karl Rove and his former deputy
Sara Taylor, were engaging in an effort to avoid oversight and accountability
by ignoring the laws meant to ensure a public record of official government
business.” The report reveals that
no e-mail messages were kept by the RNC for 51 of the 88 officials who used the
RNC e-mail accounts. How convenient? But then that is likely the reason behind
using the RNC e-mail accounts instead of official government accounts.
World Can’t Wait will continue to follow this story as it
keeps readers up-to-date on the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal.