CREW: White House Breaking Records Law? (RE: outside domain/gwb43.com)

[babylonsister]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002771.php

CREW: White House Breaking Records Law?
By Paul Kiel - March 15, 2007, 2:24 PM

A number of readers have pointed out that Karl Rove's deputy at the White House, Scott Jennings, used an outside domain, gwb43.com, for his emails. The domain, it turns out, is owned by the Republican National Committee.

Now Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sent a letter to House government reform committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) requesting an investigation of whether the White House has been violating the Presidential Records Act -- in an attempt to keep certain correspondence away from prying eyes.

Jennings use of the RNC's email "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," says CREW.

And there's evidence that Jennings' use of an outside domain was a pattern in Rove's office. CREW points out that Karl Rove's former assistant Susan Ralston also frequently used outside domains to communicate to her old boss, Jack Abramoff.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that House Democrats are also planning on investigating the White House's use of outside domains for correspondence. Namely:

Democratic congressional aides said they will investigate whether using the private address for government business violated laws against using taxpayer resources for political work or signaled that White House officials considered the firing of U.S. attorneys to be primarily a political issue. Jennings did not return a call to his office seeking a comment.

An RNC spokeswoman told the Post that "As a matter of course, the RNC provides server space and equipment to certain White House personnel in order to assist them with their political efforts."

But the question here is whether there is any line between "political efforts" and official duties in the Bush White House.

Previous DU thread for reference:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=411395


:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Fresh_Start]

1. RNC doesn't have executive privilege

supoena the emails from them.

[Fovea]

10. RIGHT ON!

Boy this is like discovering gold!

FOIA the mofos ASAP.

[AndyA]

2. I'd be willing to bet they are one and the same:

But the question here is whether there is any line between "political efforts" and official duties in the Bush White House.

The shit is getting closer to the fan all the time.

[tanyev]

7. It's about time.

;

[AndyA]

11. I love your images. I laugh everytime I see one of your posts.

They really are just too funny. :rofl:

[tanyev]

12. Why, thank you, thank you very much.

:+

[myrna minx]

3. This is getting very interesting. n/t

[POAS]

4. A good discussion of this

took place here yesterday this DU thread

[babylonsister]

5. Yes. I just referenced that thread in the OP-thanks. nt

[POAS]

6. Sorry, I didn't see it!.................:-(

[babylonsister]

8. No problem; I was updating as you were typing, so it probably

wasn't there. :hi:

[502WildcatDem]

9. Speaking of RNC ---

Anyone seen this yet?

http://barackosama2008.org/

Just for fun check out GOP.com -- it's the same site, same IP. Dirty bastards.

[POAS]

13. I saw a thread on that last night and

tried to follow their trail via a "whois" search. Unfortunately my sluething skills are not great so I didn't get very far. It isn't entirely clear that this domain is indeed RNC owned or if it merely (and deliberately) points back to the RNC via a redirect HTML command.

They seem to have hidden their tracks behind a service that "anonimizes" things like ownership of domains. An address in the whois data base did lead to an address of an office building in PA. but I could not pin it down to a specific business in that building.

The owners of the web hosting service for gwb43.com is available and they got their original contrast with the RNC to host sites and services related to the 2004 convention. That identity is available at the other discussions linked in this thread.

[robinlynne]

17. the RNC paid for it.

[nebenaube]

18. trace complete...

the site is indeed hosted at the same IP as gop.com. The hosting provider is SMARTech Corp and they are at PO Box 11181, Chatanooga, TN 37401.. the dns admin's phone number is [phone]

The site is registered at enom.com

[POAS]

19. We found Smartech

last night. They are the hosting service that won the contract to host the GOP's 2004 convention related web business.

If GOP.com is located on the same server then it is strong circumstantial link to the RNC and the GOP.

Remember the flap of several years ago when somebody registered Whitehouse.com and it was a XXX rated web business and of course the real Whitehouse is whitehouse.gov.

As deep throat said "Follow the money"! That is where the definitive proof would be.

[babylonsister]

14. Welcome to DU, 502WildcatDem! I hope someone with more knowledge

than myself can check out what you have there, and comment.

[babylonsister]

15. .

[robinlynne]

16. oh yeah!!!!!