Patrick Leahy suggested today the BushCo regime was erasing large portions of documents!

[RiverStone]

It's GREAT to see DEMS on the Hill exercising some muscle in the ProsecutorGate scandal! Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy came out aggressively opposed today to White House counsel Fred Fielding's wimpy conditions by which Rove and Miers would meet with legislators. Fielding said the two would only meet with legislators in private and NOT under oath.

The DEMS responded by saying they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides. YES!!!!! That's what we want to see!

Per CNN (3/20/07) Leahy said:

<snip>

Shortly before Bush addressed reporters, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy emerged from the meeting with Fielding to say he would not accept the White House's offer.

"It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation, or to prejudge its outcome," said Leahy. "Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day."

"Testimony should be on the record, and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability," said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "I hope the president will agree to be forthcoming. The straighter the path to the truth, the sooner we will finally know the facts."

more:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/20/us.attorneys.firings/index.html


Here is a question for DUer's:


Leahy said:...after erasing large portions?

Does Leahy have knowledge or proof that the BushCo regime deliberately erased documents or emails? The "erased" notion was not elaborated upon in the above story. This would be a HUGE discovery. Thanks in advance for your wise clarity on the subject.

:kick:

[liberalnurse]

1. So, whar can we do when they destroy evidence?

We can't prove it...Can we?

[Matariki]

8. Ha! servers would have to be melted down

you can't just throw things in the 'Recycled Bin' for them to go away...

[Kagemusha]

2. It's called redaction

it's something done to copies not originals. ...Presumably.

[RiverStone]

10. So then presumably, Shrub has the original...

documents - but is sitting on them. Thanks Kagemusha :)

That being said, if this is a result of redaction - can those documents be obtained through subpoena? What accountability exists to ensure what we would see is accurate anyway?

Damn, good to see king idiot George throwing a temper tantrum because NO, we will NOT go along just for the hell of it. NO more!

[originalpckelly]

13. Yes, what's interesting is that many believed this was done by Congress...

and not the Administration. One has to wonder what they are hiding from the Congress here.

[Kagemusha]

18. In theory they can yes, the admin will simply fight every step of the way

That's "expanding the power of the presidency" for you.

[w4rma]

21. Erased is different from redaction. Redaction means that the originals are kept safe.

Erased means that they are messing with the originals.

[Kagemusha]

22. I don't think Leahy really meant erased.

And if they were erased, there's no way he'd know with what he's been shown.

Hopefully he'll know for sure no matter how you slice it, and soon.

[w4rma]

24. Sure he could know. When an entire month of emails is missing and when email conversations skip

important connecting messages one can tell.

Or when some of the emails were privately leaked and weren't included in the dump, one can tell.

[Kagemusha]

25. No, you can't tell from that. That means the stuff wasn't handed over.

Doesn't mean it doesn't exist or has been erased.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. One area politicians of Leahy's caliber are good at...

Is the well-turned, exacting and considered phrase.

I do believe that if Pat Leahy said it, Pat Leahy meant it.

[POAS]

4. He may have been referring to

redactions in documents released.

[Bitwit1234]

5. Matthews and Gregory saying bush is getting tough

What bush is, is a bully. For six years he has had congress behind him to sanction everyone of his illegal moves. Now. The tide has turned he is starting to throw temper tantrums to get what he wants.

Those that can't see him for what he is, are just about as bad as he. is. And if President Clinton can be compelled to testify and can't invoke executive privledge, how come bush thinks two aides can invoke execute privledge, and one is no longer a member of his administration, miers is a private citizen. Remember she retired 31 January 2007.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Leahy also made snarky comments about wanting to know

how much they're spending on White-Out, because they're obviously spending so little on print.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

7. I'm pretty sure he's talking about the blacked-out portions,...

,...as if this is a 'national security', CIA redacted kind of thingy.

It's just ridiculous!!!!

[global1]

9. Check This Out.......

I Came Across This Over The Weekend

New *Co Scandal?

Has Anybody Heard Any More On This Story From Daily Kos - New * Scandal?

link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/4/135310/0946

It was the topic of this DU Thread on Sunday (not sure if this thread is active yet but here's the link):Here's the link - see if this works: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

I'm posting this again - because - it didn't seem to go anywhere the other day. If what I read is true - this could be bad for the WH.

And this could bear out what Leahy is saying about erasing large portions.....

[madrchsod]

11. routing messages thru another website and server

i remember this thread sunday,yup it is very interesting...

[LiberalFighter]

16. Here is the last packet received by the Judiciary Committee

Letter to Conyers/Sanchez dated 19 Mar 2007 referring to requested documents

[CK_John]

19. I remember * making a point that he did not eMail. Did he mean,

"not from a gov account". Maybe he used GWB43 from the RNC as his eMail channel.

[Marie26]

12. They are whiting out documents

Check out pages 38 & 39 of this file -

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/DOJDocsPt1-11070319.pdf
(sorry, I don't know how to import the page)

Page 38 & 39 are just two sides of the same piece of paper. It's the last page of a transcript of the Senate hearing on the US Att. firings, and it contains scrambled notes from someone at the Dep. AG's office.

Page 38 appears to be a handwritten note from Deputy Att. General McNulty. He has written a "to-do" list - including "SDCA - deal w/Carol" (US Att. Carol Lam), and "Kevin Ryan - EARS - Margolis" (Sending US Att. Ryan's EARS performance review to Margolis). The thing is, there are at least 10 other bullet points in his list - except all the other sentences are whited out. You can still see the bullet points next to the erased sentences.

But Page 39 is just the back of Page 38, and there you can still see the entire long list (backwards) where the ink went through the page. They've clearly erased most of the handwritten note, but didn't think to also erase the other side of the page. Any intrepid techies want to figure out what the note says?

[tulsakatz]

14. so if they subpoena them.....

...and they still don't agree to testify under oath, does that mean they have broken the law?

[Tarheel_Dem]

20. they can be held in contempt....

of congress. i just heard on scarborough that if they refuse a subpoena, it then goes to the USSC & from there to federal court of appeals (i think)? If I'm not mistaken, when the leglislative & executive branches are at legal odds, that's what is termed a "constitutional crisis"?

[LiberalFighter]

15. Having not checked all of the documents

It would be difficult for anyone to make that statement without knowing certain facts.

Senators and Representatives doing their job right should know or find the facts out fast enough because they know or can find out the procedures easier then we can.

Were these documents newly converted to PDF format? If they were then would not be able to determine by that method whether any pages are missing. Each of the pages are numbered numerically.
If these documents were converted to PDF format shortly after the original document date then any documents missing would be evident.

The method they converted these documents to PDF format does not lend itself to easy investigation. And I would consider it intentional. Instead of the documents converted from a electronic word-processor such as Word they converted the documents from a hard copy without using OCR. Therefore, the only way to do a search is manually.

The documents cannot be highlighted, copied and pasted either.

[John Q. Citizen]

17. I think the Dems have more info than they are letting on. When Hillary came out

and called on Gonzales to resign last week, I knew there was more info than we are getting so far.

Hillary doesn't just call on people to resign becaus they are slime balls; She has something to back it up.

[Catherine Vincent]

23. Leahy better be careful....

or else Cheney will tell him to "go fuck yourself" again. :)

[H2O Man]

26. One reason that I

had hoped Scooter Libby had tesified in his trial was so that Mr. Fitzgerald could have addressed something he hinted at in his opening statement, regarding Libby possibly doing away with a document relating to the scandal.