CREW Asks for House Investigation into White House Violations of Presidential Records Act

[seafan]

CREW Asks for House Investigation into White House Violations of Presidential Records Act

U.S. Attorney Firings and Abramoff-Related Emails Sent from RNC and Other Outside Addresses Circumvent Mandatory Record-Keeping System

March 15, 2007

WASHINGTON, March 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In light of e-mails
released by the House Judiciary Committee this week in response to the on-
going U.S. Attorney firing scandal, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington (CREW) sent a letter today to Chairman of the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), asking for an
investigation into whether the White House has violated its mandatory
record- keeping obligation under the Presidential Records Act (PRA).


One email, sent to Justice Department Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson
from J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, uses an
email account, [e-mail], on a server owned by the Republican
National Committee. This raises serious questions about whether the White
House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA,
which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain
presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during
his tenure.


A number of other emails from Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's former
assistant Susan Ralston to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff document Ms.
Ralston's use of three outside domains: rnchq.com (used for the
headquarters of the Republican National Committee), georgebush.com and
aol.com. In many of these emails Ms. Ralston is communicating inside White
House information to Mr. Abramoff in response to Mr. Abramoff's efforts to
broker deals for his clients and place specified individuals in positions
within the administration.


CREW has learned that to fulfill its statutory obligations under the
PRA, the White House email system automatically copies all messages created
by staff and sends them to the White House Office of Records Management for
archiving. It appears that the White House deliberately bypassed the
automatic archiving function of its own email system that was designed to
ensure compliance with the PRA.

.....

[originalpckelly]

1. Well, there's another crime.

What will we find out next?

[ShockediSay]

2. Well, I heard this AM on the radio that the Guam US Atty who sent Abramoff

a subpoena, and started looking into Abramoff's activities, was demoted forthwith, and the subpoena canceled. This Atty's investigation of Abramoff was also canceled by higher ups. All this occurred way early in the Abramoff saga.

[seafan]

3. Yep. More info on the Guam angle here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x395743

[Lasher]

4. This administration has always been obsessed with secrecy

So has the Mafia

[Tigress DEM]

5. Oh, YES, let's investigate ALL the ways these mugs hid their illegal actions.

My first biggest MADD AS HELL AND AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE! was when MOLLY IVINS O8) outed *ush for pulling the list of "contractors for US" out of the public purview and hired a private firm to keep (lose, hide, mangle, obscure, re-invent) the information about WHO the US is paying for WHAT and HOW much. This was BEFORE we got into the whole Iraq debacle. A definate "We know this won't hold up to scrutiny so hide the evidence" move.


O8) (May God turn her into a kick-ass Archangle with wings that cut the *ushit like a knife through butter - oh wait she did that in her column... nevermind. I miss her so much. :cry:)

[hootinholler]

6. Good, I'm glad someone else noticed...

Hey CREW people, remember Abrahamoff did the same thing!

-Hoot