And from the Zandar Big Fuggin’ Surprise Desk, comes this little gem.
The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.
Yep. That’s right. The White House destroyed the e-mails on the server, and now admits it taped over the backups.
This alone would, and should, in a better alternate universe where Democrats aren’t either A) invertebrates or B) cynically waiting for their own chance to perfect Bush’s quasi-dictatorship, result in resignation ahead of impeachment.
But of course, this isn’t going to happen. Here’s the kicker.
The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.
Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking a CIA officer’s identity to reporters.
Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes “consistent with industry best practices,” according to a sworn statement by a White House aide.
See, like, umm…Wal-Mart recycles backup tapes, so we did too. So, those are all gone. Sorry and stuff, dudes.
Never mind that the White House is supposed to keep all these records as required by law. Apparently, “best industry practices” for a Bush flunkie is “break the goddamn law.”
Separately, the statement reveals the extent to which the White House is apparently unable to answer how many e-mails are missing from White House servers.
The White House “does not know if any e-mails were not properly preserved in the archiving process,” said the statement by Theresa Payton, chief information officer for the White House Office of Administration. “We are continuing our efforts,” said Payton, whose staff is responsible for the White House e-mail system.
Folks, I work business IT for a bank. I’m up to my ass in SOX compliance and SEC compliance regulations for “best industry practices”, that’s part of my job.
If the CIO of my company said publicly “I do not know if any e-mails were properly preserved in the archiving process” that CIO would in fact be out on his ass faster than a stalkerazzi on Britney Spears. Not only that, we’d have the SEC all over our asses wanting to know why we’re not compliant with keeping all documentation as mandated by federal law. There would in fact be big ol’ legal proceedings, fines, hearing, fuck it.
White House? Naah. They don’t have to follow the laws. That’s for the unwashed masses and Dirty Unserious Hippiecrats.
If the e-mails were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal records or presidential records.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined immediate comment Wednesday.
The seven-page document filed in U.S. District Court says the White House in October 2003 “began preserving and storing all backup tapes and continues to do so.” Payton said this means that e-mails sent or received in the 2003-2005 time period should be contained on existing backup tapes.
The period of 2003 and 2005 is the time frame at issue in lawsuits seeking information about possibly millions of missing e-mails at the Bush White House.
Of course, they’re gone. They were deliberately destroyed. It’s obstruction of justice at the highest order. Evidence was destroyed, and the backups of that evidence was also systematically destroyed. You think Theresa Payton is going to lose her job? You think any of the self-righteous anti-pork Grover Norquist bathtub-drowning wingnuts are going to raise a peep over the White House destroying two years of emails and now saying they taped over the goddamn backups?
Of course not. The White House is not subject to your “human laws”. They are above those petty concerns, like some sort of horrible cross between Emperor Palpatine and Paul Muad’Dib. The lies must flow. Whoever controls the lies, controls the universe.
So we took impeachment off the table, and the White House will continue to break the law and simply tell the rest of the country and the world to fuck off, because we have no power over them.
And right now, we don’t. We may not have any power over them in November, either. Still plenty of time for a national emergency that precludes elections.
It’s beyond arrogance. It’s beyond disdain. It’s institutionalized lawlessness.
“If the backup tapes have been erased or taped over or recycled, it’s hard to imagine where we will find copies of many lost e-mails,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, said in an interview Wednesday.
“It appears that the White House has now destroyed the evidence of its misconduct,” said Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for the ethics group.
“The White House declaration raises more questions than it answers, specifically the likelihood that for a very significant period of time — March 2003 to October 2003 — the White House recycled its backup tapes,” said Weismann.
“As a result there may be no way to recover the missing e-mails from a period in which the U.S. decided to go to war with Iraq, White House officials leaked the identity of Valerie Plame and the Justice Department started a criminal investigation of the White House,” the lawyer said.
But remember, nobody cares. Caring about this would be too unserious for our Serious Media. There’s no story here. Maybe because emails aren’t missing Caucasian women aged 18-25. Perhaps if the White house disappeared a few million of them, the media might notice.
Update [2008-1-16 15:10:32 by Zandar1]: More on this from Scout Finch at The Orange Crush.
