Tuesday, June 19, 2007

House Panel Says Records of E-Mails Are Missing

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 18 (AP) — E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.

The Bush administration may have committed “extensive” violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, the committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said.

Read the rest here ...

It seems there are a couple of questions you have to ask yourself:
  1. If its worth the risks inherent in breaking well established Federal law to destroy the e-mails, how grievous must have been the infractions conducted within the e-mails that were destroyed? I know a little about IT procedures, server technology and e-mail trails. Someone went to a lot of effort to remove all traces of these e-mails in question. Its more than just deleting them on the individuals computer. They have to be removed from the e-mail servers, as well as from the backup servers and tapes (or disks).
  2. How many people were involved? The article mentions 55 White House officials, but then there are members of the support staff, and IT professionals (who are well aware of the regulations). How many people does it take to make a conspiracy?
  3. Who are these people working for? I thought that, in a republic, the government was an employee of the people. This administration has made it abundantly clear that it represents only some of the people and has no interest in representing all of the people.
  4. If the Clinton administration had deleted e-mails on any scale remotely approaching the scale of this debacle, what would the response have been from the other side of the aisle? If one can imaging that the response might have been loud and forceful, then one must ask where is their moral indignation and outrage now?
  5. Given the scandals involving Gonzales, DeLay, Abramoff, Cunningham and a myriad of others ... is there a pattern here?

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