Semi-Daily Journal

It would be accurate to state that Pres. Bush had no idea - he stated publicly that he doesn't read the papers.

His staff certainly DID know!!

I spent 10 years working for the Federal government including details to various Federal agencies in DC. So I know something of how both Executive Orders and government email systems work.

First off, regarding emails, memos, and phone logs. I don't know exactly know how the White House does things, but if it's even remotely like my old agency (NOAA) then it's impossible for an individual to permanently delete emails without a lot of help sysadmin types. The White House email system is most certainly NOT a POP3 system in which emails reside on each employee's machine. Rather, it is most certainly some type of IMAP system with daily backup where emails reside on a central server and stay there even if you delete them. Where I worked at NOAA in Juneau Alaska they ran a nightly tape backup of all the servers and had about a 2 week rotation on the tapes. So to permanently delete an email, you would have to purge it on the server and also delete it on all of the tape backups going back 2 weeks. And then to hide your tracks from serious investigators, you'd have to reformat the tapes. That would take a lot of manual tape loading and root access on the main servers. Something that the average employee is not going to be able to do.

I expect that the White House has a much more sophisticated email system than we had in the Federal Building in Juneau, Alaska so I suspect that it would be much harder to permanently erase stored emails without leaving a trail.

The same goes for phone logs. The actual call records are most certainly computerized so there is an electronic record of every outgoing and incoming call to the White House. In addition, the secretaries that answer phones and write down the phone logs most certainly do it on the computer, which means that these files are also saved and backed up on the network and would be just as hard to erase as emails.

Record retention in all Federal agencies is pretty thorough in these days of computerization. And I'm sure it's even more thorough at the White House. The way that you don't leave tracks is to stay off the Federal system in the first place. Instead of using a government phone line, use your personal cell phone. Instead of using a Federal email account, use hotmail or something like that. People pretty much know this.

This isn't the 1980s anymore, when Oliver North could use a shredder to delete records in the basement. It's much more complicated than that now. Deleting paper copies accomplishes nothing.

So I don't think that waiting overnight really gave anyone time to destroy records. They just aren't that easy to destroy without a LOT of help from the computer folks, and that would take a fairly large conspiracy to commit criminal acts.

Secondly, on the issue of the order to retain all records. Knowing how goverment works, I suspect that the White House Counsel's office wanted some time to figure out the proper language of the order and clear it through channels before sending it out. That's something that is generally done for any type of order of this nature. I'm not trying to excuse the Counsel's office but I suspect that the reasons for the delay were more bureaucratic than malicious. They probably just wanted to pour over the language first.

In any event, they didn't need to issue the order anyway because distruction of these sorts of records would be a criminal act regardless of whether there was an order to retain or not. If someone spent the night in the basement of the White House erasing computer records and backup files, that is a criminal act regardless of whether the order was issued.

Personally, I'm a Democrat who'd like to see this bunch frog-marched out of the White House in chains as much as anyone. But I just don't see the delay as being that big of a deal. It was stupid because it makes them look bad. But I don't see it as particularly malicious.

Did not the CIA send over to the White House an informal request to investigate the Plame outing in late July? Are they saying they never got this request or what?

Did not the CIA send over to the White House an informal request to investigate the Plame outing in late July? Are they saying they never got this request or what?

I think they would have sent it to the Justice Dept not the White House.

In any event, there really isn't any such thing as an "informal request" between agencies.

At least not that I'm aware of. You might have informal requests between individuals that work in different agencies. This happens all the time. I did it hundreds of times working in the government. But not between agencies themselves.

Remember, the WH is playing spin games like 'not technically illegal' and 'we weren't informed'.

Every bit of delay and confusion helps them. The press is still very shy of this administration, the Democratic leadership makes the press look like rabid leftists. Millions of Bush apologists will eagerly stuff their J.D.'s and Ph.D.'s under a cushion while lamenting that things are complicated, and that more time is needed before judging.

As long as administration officials don't commit acts which are (very, very, very) easily proven to be illegal to the most casual (passed out drunk) observer, any confusing actions will help Bush.

For example, not turning in all e-mails because the WH lawyer determined that some were not relevant. This is tricky, true, and should be done with a sober and serious mindset, but it is quite workable.

Any serious investigator is going to word-search the ENTIRE white house email data for relevant key words. They can do this easily.

Sounds like what they are doing is printing individual emails onto paper and sending them over in boxes. That is absurd.

Unless, of course, one wished to delay the process. Delay can cause things to move out of the short attention span of the headlines. It can allow apologists to use new phrases, like "it's old news; nothing important". Old, debunked arguments can be used all over again, because many people forgot them.

Getting an entire set of White House backup tapes is wishful thinking. Executive Privilege remember? The DoJ is asking the Pres. to send all relevent information. The White House lawyer gets to decide what is relevent. This is exactly like a criminal deciding what evidence a judge, jury, and procecuter is able to use in his own trial.

Getting an entire set of White House backup tapes is wishful thinking. Executive Privilege remember? The DoJ is asking the Pres. to send all relevent information. The White House lawyer gets to decide what is relevent. This is exactly like a criminal deciding what evidence a judge, jury, and procecuter is able to use in his own trial.

What Hal says is true. Especially since the era of Ken Starr, there have been procedures for pulling e-mail and phone logs. I am sure that staff at the White House can't be intimidated en masse. Of course, permitting the White House counsel to vet the evidence before sending it onward is mad; but any evidence that exists will continue to exist once backup copies have been pulled.

Now -- who thinks the leakers were dumb enough to do this sort of thing from offices?

I expect that the White House has a much more sophisticated email system than we had in the Federal Building in Juneau, Alaska so I suspect that it would be much harder to permanently erase stored emails without leaving a trail.

AFAIK, the White House still uses PROFS for its internal email. Because of a series of lawsuits in the 80s & 90s, there are strict rules & procedures for data retention, including automatic archiving of most if not all emails at the National Archives. It would be just about impossible to circumvent this setup.

s/n:r