Waxman Challenges White House E-Mail Claim

House Committee Chair Says Administration Assertions Conflict With Earlier Statements

(AP)  A White House chart indicates no e-mail was archived on 473 days for various units of the Executive Office of the President, a House committee chairman says.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., says a White House spokesman's comments suggesting no e-mail had disappeared conflicted with what congressional staffers were told in September.

On Thursday night, Waxman said he was scheduling a hearing for Feb. 15 and challenged the White House to explain spokesman Tony Fratto's remark that "we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing."

Fratto based his comment on the contents of a White House declaration filed in federal court casting doubt on the accuracy of a chart created by a former White House employee that points to a large volume of e-mail gone from White House servers.

The brief description of the chart in the sworn declaration appears to match Waxman's description of what White House officials showed his staff at a Sept. 19 briefing.

There are 16 days of no archived e-mails from Sept. 12, 2003, to May 23, 2005, for the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to Waxman's letter announcing the hearing. There are a dozen days of no archived e-mails for the White House Office inside the EOP, starting Dec. 17, 2003, and ending on Feb. 8, 2004, Waxman's letter added.

Waxman said the White House officials took the chart on which the information is based with them, while indicating the White House was doing an additional analysis to determine whether the information in the chart was accurate.

Asked to testify are White House Counsel Fred Fielding; Alan Swendiman, director of the White House Office of Administration, and Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States.

Waxman called the hearing after Fratto tried to tamp down the growing e-mail controversy.

Fratto's comments shifted away from White House statements last spring that expressed uncertainty over whether the allegations were true or not.

"We tried to reconstruct some of the work" in the chart and "could not authenticate the correctness of the data," said Fratto. "We have no evidence and we have no way of showing that any e-mail at all are missing."

The existence of the chart surfaced Tuesday night in the White House declaration filed in lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the private National Security Archive.

The declaration, which the White House was forced to file pursuant to court order, disclosed that before October 2003, the White House recycled computer backup tapes containing e-mail. Such a process would overwrite large numbers of e-mails. The White House said it began preserving backup tapes in October 2003, but recycled them before then.

If the chart of e-mail missing from archives turns out to be accurate, the backup tapes should contain substantially all e-mails sent or received in the 2003-2005 time period, the White House court declaration said.

"We have no reason to believe that there is any data missing at all" from White House computer servers, said Fratto. "And we've certainly found no evidence of any data missing."

The court declaration said the White House was undertaking an independent assessment of a chart to determine whether any e-mail is missing.

The White House's latest statements represent a shift from what it was saying last spring when it seemed uncertain whether e-mail was missing from the archives or not. The latest statements also represent a shift from what the White House apparently told prosecutors over two years ago in the probe into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

In January 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald reported that "we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."

The White House says the e-mail matter arose in October 2005 in connection with the Justice Department's CIA leak probe. Fitzgerald revealed it to the public three months later in preparations for the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was later convicted of four felonies in the Plame affair. President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison term.

[toolmangler-2009]

There is no god!
Posted by HSinCO at 02:16 PM : Jan 18, 2008



Yes there is, but Bushy_baby does not own him like he thinks he does. "Criminal jerk"

[neoconrcrazy]

when it''s corrupt, it smells.

the stink coming from this adminstration is overwhelming.

the worst executive branch in our history cosing us lives, reputation, treasury, and unity -

[mrconservatv]

Still don''t know what went up in smoke with Cheneys office another big QUESTION

[liberalme]

It''''s true the whitehouse morons (Cheaney and his puppet) do not accept emails.

Posted by pared1 at 10:01 AM

It really is true!! Cheney blocked my emails lol!!! Couldn''t stand reading the truth!!

[madashell4lo]

Give em hell Hank. If this is not a case that our children can look at someday and say " no one is above the law " and can be proud that this kind of *** stopped and never allowed to happen again, I could see our children fall into a pit of anarchy. This is above political bent, This is our countries face. The one that we present to the world. No wonder the rest of the free world no longer believes that we are the bastion of freedom, justice, and honest government. The act of outing a CIA operative whose husband knew that the whole WMD reason to go to war was a lie is a Treasonous act and should be prosecuted now!. The "lost" Emails are still out there somewhere-- dig and ye shall find. Sorry if anyones damaged by my spelling.

[noloyalisti]

This is a criminal administration who think they are better that the people and are above the law. Kind of like the Nazis, the purebreds. Unfortunately it is just the opposite.

We cannot let them continue spying, torturing and murdering innocent Americans (or Iraqis or anyone else). Support the Wexler impeachment request in Congress. We don''t want them out, we want indictments. We want to stop the fascist surge.

[inventagod]

Waxman has the White House by the ****s. These sleazy Republicons had a working email backup system when Clinton left. They disabled the system and never turned it back on. There is only one explaination for this breaking of federal laws, and the lies that continually cover the malfeasance. The Republicons knew they were breaking the law, and refused to retain evidence of said lawlessness. This administration is all lawyers, all the time, and they must be held responsible, in the courts.

[hsinco-2009]

There is no god!

[rowdytexan2]

Hahahhaa! Bush and Cheney pro''bly don''t do emails, or even buy post it notes. They just write notes on dollar bills, and send it off knowing that it''s going to come right back into their pocket.

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by david1737 at 02:00 PM : Jan 18, 2008

Well said!

[david1737]

When I hear about outing a CIA Operative I tend to get upset.

When I hear about a former repub Congressman sending more than $130,000 dollars to an al Qaeda supporter who has threatened U.S. troops in Afghanistan I loose my cool.

When I hear that my govt is using torture as a method of interrogation I may get angry. I might even do some name-calling.

This is reality, these indictments real, they are not part of a "witch hunt" and they certainly can''t be rationalized away because of any previous Administrations shortcomings of mistakes.

[david1737]

Crusherking,

Trying to rationalize the mountain of corruption charges which the Bush Admin. is implicated in because you don''t like Bill Clinton, sad indeed.

[david1737]

Once again I see nothing repubs squirming, and whining trying to make excuses.

I''ll make this simple:

GOP = Torture, Treason, and pedophiles.

[crusherking]

And what is the big deal here? How is this such a problem.. ITs not. Just another pinko dem ploy to sling mud. Guess its good fodder for the illiterate dems posting on this blog as well. Not only do they have no common sense or moral fiber, they can not spell to save their lives. They lower themselves to name calling(emperor, shrub, neocon etc.) like that makes them seem intelligent when, quite honestly, it does the exact opposite. You can say what you want about the current administration, its no different that the previous administration. I seem to recall a lot of lies, deceit and double talk from Clinton( both Clintons), Yet you dems somehow laud them as great leaders. Makes absolutely no sense. If Bill had done his job, we wouldn''t have had to go to war. Instead he was too busy chasing interns and trying to figure out what the definition of "is" is. God help us if another Clinton gets into the oval office.

[godseyesore-2009]

Anyone should know by now that email NEVER disappears. How do you think government uses email against those it wishes to "get"?
As if it isn''t apparant from all his previous nefarious actions, Cheney is a criminal.

"This should be tasked to an outside, non-partisan source. Did we learn nothing from the Nixon White House tapes?" Agreed. If this happened on the private side a lot of people would get fired. There is no excuse for not backing up and archiving ALL CITICAL DATA. It''s common sense.

[jjp735i]

Waxman will do what Congress does best. Blow smoke for media attention and then nothing. Congress makes more demands for information then ever, yet once the issue dies down in the media, Congress shuts up and NEVER gets to the bottom of anything.

[pared1]

It''s true the whitehouse morons (Cheaney and his puppet) do not accept emails.

[itchyb-2009]

lib witch hunt ... yeah. The republicans spent untold millions during the Clinton administration on actual witch hunts, fool. This is about obstruction of our nation''s laws and the idiots that you would support, no matter what they did. What hypocracy, toadie

[neobrian-2009]

Lies,Corruption,Deceit,Greed
The fundamental base of " Shrub`s Administration"
Can you imagine trying to be a teacher,..telling our our youth to respect ''the people who lead us''?
Never has our country sunk so low,...W` is The Biggest Disgrace to Ever Occupy the white house.