Oh, RH, this gives me a lot of hope, I have to say.
NYMary |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:37 pm | #
If we read the emails, the terrists win
Thor likes Pizza |
02.01.06 - 7:37 pm | #
ReddHedd, promise us you'll write the definitive book about this shady affair at some point in the (near) future, once it's come to a satisfying conclusion.
SteveNS |
02.01.06 - 7:38 pm | #
There could be an abnormal (or, just, not normal) archiving process that saved the emails despite the best efforts of Gonzalez, Card, Ashcroft and whichever staffers they got to help (somehow I don't see Ashcroft being that nimble with a computer). It's possible that through deeper computer searching, the files were retreived, alerting Fitz that there was a discrepancy. However, if Gonzalez, Ashcroft and Card actually can't use computers - again, I wouldn't bet against this - then they had to have some people come in and help scrub, in which case those are much easier marks for a pro like Fitz.
Zoidberg |
02.01.06 - 7:40 pm | #
the definitive books on this affair will not (cannot) be written for another 50 years or so because it is so profound. Journalism is merely the first draft of history ...
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:40 pm | #
With apologies if I am not getting the commenting thing right, and should have done this in the prior thread, but just to report that I met someone tonight who happened to be a Feingold staffer, and I provided them with Glenn Greenwald's blog information as well -- so if Feingold doesn't already have it, which I hope he does, he might soon. I told the staffer to tell their boss to hold Gonzalez's feet to the fire. Here's hoping.
The E |
02.01.06 - 7:40 pm | #
No, write a book now - put it out in installments, like Charles Dickens used to do!
sola mia |
02.01.06 - 7:40 pm | #
Redd,
How you find the time to do all this I can't begin to imagine. Maybe you should consider saving the country by different means, like maybe publishing a book on Time Management, or the Book of Five Rings for Supermoms.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 7:42 pm | #
Another 18 minute gap? The ghost of Rosemary Rove?
Oklahoma kiddo |
02.01.06 - 7:42 pm | #
So, um, how many emails does it take to make up 18-1/2 minutes?
Mike Jones |
02.01.06 - 7:44 pm | #
Redd--
Is this Fitzgerald's pre-emptive strike in advance of Friday's hearing?
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 7:44 pm | #
Wilson, methinks this one will come out quicker. Things are moving awfully fast and the Deathstar will be blown apart well before 50 years pass, so the truth about what happened in Africa, or VX in Turkey for that matter, might yet out. Winners get to cover up the truth. Losers don't get the same perks.
...
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 7:45 pm | #
one damning Email that was attempted to be deleted is worth at least 9 minutes...
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:45 pm | #
Redd,
Great work. Could the discovery requests be Libby's way of scoping what else Fitz might be pursuing against him and the rest of the lot? You make it sounds like Fitz is playing possum with them. Thanks.
Leonard |
02.01.06 - 7:49 pm | #
Zoidberg is right: if all the copies of these e-mails are gone, they must have called in a systems guy to scrub records in several places. I don't think any Rosemary Woods style oopsies could possibly do that.
So, these e-mails and their fate will be very interesting to follow.
*********
MarcLord said:
"Redd,
How you find the time to do all this I can't begin to imagine. Maybe you should consider saving the country by different means,"
Well, people were arguing about the best ticket for 2008. I've heard talk that said ticket would be photogenic. It's impolite to ask about ages, but I think 35 years is the magic number. Is 2008 too soon?
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 7:49 pm | #
It can be your "Tuesdays with Scooter" book.
I didn't really know anything about the detailed notebook on Wilson - if that exists, it will make the "gosh, it slipped my mind" defense almost a howler.
Great to have the extended version of the quote:
We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed. In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system. (Ex. C, p. 6)
That is great.
Also - for anyone who was interested --- I think the House just voted to delay Patriot Act vote to March 10 (personally, I was wondering what was going on).
Anonymous |
02.01.06 - 7:49 pm | #
GOP = Grand Ole Perpwalk
res |
02.01.06 - 7:51 pm | #
Things are getting very hot for Cheney and perhaps for the Great Prevaricator himself, then? Why do I get the feeling that this may be an intricate kabuki between Fitz and the Libby defense team?
I have a hard time following the legalese, but it seems that the Libby defense tactic has brought out some very threatening behavior from Fitz against, shall we say, higher-ups. Is the Libby team trying to indicate to El Busho that the time for a pardon may be drawing nigh?
Dallasdoc |
02.01.06 - 7:51 pm | #
There is a rec'd diary up on kos and the comment section hashes out the theory of whether an e mail is ever really gone. Apparently, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to destroy one. Also we learn about how Dick Cheney (and Google) are sitting on complete copies of - the Internet.
jeff |
02.01.06 - 7:51 pm | #
I guess I became temporarily anonymous to all but NSA trackers. Pat Act delayed to 3-10 was me.
Mary |
02.01.06 - 7:51 pm | #
ReddHedd- this may be a minor document, and sorry if you have already linked it somewhere, but this is a PDF of one of Fitz's letters. http://rawstory.com/other/pdfs/
R...yFitzLetter.pdf
-
Valley Girl |
02.01.06 - 7:51 pm | #
OT from CNN Christianne Amnpour: there are over 1 million blogs in Iranian (Farsi)(Persian) It has the world's 4th largest blogging community...
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:52 pm | #
WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice
Samuel Alito split with the court's conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.
ADVERTISEMENT
Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices
Antonin Scalia and
Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.
Perhaps doesn't mean a lot, but what if...?
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 7:53 pm | #
Oooh, Valley Girl -- excellent! I can link above. That's the Exhibit C letter.
ReddHedd |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:53 pm | #
notjonathon: that decision is a good sign. re Alito, I guess.
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 7:55 pm | #
Mary,
"I guess I became temporarily anonymous to all but NSA trackers. Pat Act delayed to 3-10 was me."
After some Clinton/Gore '96 fundraising e-mails went walkabout, the document retention rules for the White House were changed, and e-documents were made subject to the same rules as paper documents in '98.
Which rules include no destruction without a green light from the National Archives.
Which is why, in 2004, after a twenty-year modus vivendi between the historians and the executive branch, the office of National Archivist suddenly became a political football again.
The Nation article here has a nice overview.
Davis X. Machina |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 7:56 pm | #
anon_1:
Read the last chapter of The Untied States of America. Just read it.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 7:56 pm | #
notjonathon: Is Alito toying with us?
Just because Stripsearch Sammy is a conservative Catholic doesn't mean he can't be sincere about being pro-life.
Riesz Fischer |
02.01.06 - 7:56 pm | #
(These documents are, unfortunately, not available as yet to link -- they were pulled from the Federal filing system, but when links become available, I will post them. I'll summarize and quote below to give you a feel for them.)
I was wondering about that. I checked the Federal District Court of Maryland's web site over the weekend and zippo! Thanks, ReddHedd ; )
Cozumel |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:00 pm | #
heads up: In 5 minutes John Stewart will be on with his SOTU show...
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:01 pm | #
MacLord:
Man, people on this blog are way too many for simple country boy me. What is this about:
Read the last chapter of "The Untied States of America"
?
Is that a film starring Bruno Gantz as Preznit? With Don Knotts and Peter Sellers in multiple roles as Democratic leadership?
Or is that what we will all be reading in the coming 3 years.
Gosh, this place is SO over my head.
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 8:01 pm | #
Jeff, I am familiar with Microsoft's procedures of appearing to delete emails from hard drives and servers, and then mirroring copies off to other servers because they need them for internal legal defense review. The last thing they want is a manager who has emails on a hard drive, understandably, and had directives to not archive old mails locally past 2 months. But it's a simple matter to mirror all emails off to another non-local server or optical disk for archiving. One must assume that the white house has far more sophisticated internal security procedures, and it would be an IT troll's wet dream to design such.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 8:02 pm | #
We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed. In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.
All government agencies, especially the White House, have elaborate records management software, including managment of email.
While there is no way to know, this sounds like Libbey & Co. attempted to delete critical emails and Fitzgerald's evidence recovery team found them. If that is true (and the only man who knows is not talking) it means that Fitzgerald knows what Libbey attempted to destroy.
Alice Marshall |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:04 pm | #
OK I'm starting to get excited again. Hope I don't get cranky if things get stalled.
O boy, O boy, O boy.
colleen military mom |
02.01.06 - 8:04 pm | #
Fitzgerald Hints White House Records Lost
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the
CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.
Buy that headline writer a drink.
-
QuentinCompson |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:05 pm | #
My hard job made me lie. Well, it's certainly an original defense tactic, I'll give them that.
Great analysis all around, but I wonder if this bit may just be laying the ground for a future rhetorical defense in the court of public opinion. I'm counting the seconds until Rush vel sim. protests on-air, "Who hasn't deleted an e-mail or two by mistake? I mean, this guy was dealing with serious issues, issues of national security!"
Then, again, maybe their arrogance has just made them stupid enough to believe they can bullshit their way out of this, too.
BorgCopyeditor |
02.01.06 - 8:05 pm | #
anon_1, I'm a simple country boy, too.
The Untied States of America is a recent book by Juan Enriquez, a very powerful mind in a powerful man. He's a bio-techie and polymath. Just buy the book, and yes, we're all going to be reading it in three years. The last chapter sorta confirms your guess re: Redd or something like her. So maybe you're not so simple after all. ;-)
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 8:05 pm | #
errr, that shoulda read "Redd or someONE like her."
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 8:06 pm | #
1) OT but a huge thank you to Jane for passing the Greenwald info on to Ted Kennedy. And another one to the E for getting it to a Feingold staffer. That could prove critical.
2) Gosh, did anyone else notice how many times Fitz referred to the "ongoing investigation" with reference to "government officials" (plural) other than Libby? Warms my heart just thinking about it.
Adam |
02.01.06 - 8:06 pm | #
notice the precise wording about no evidence being destroyed with reference to what Libby has been charged with:"obstruction". That's not to say other non-Libby evidence hasn't been destroyed! (such as some Emails)
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:07 pm | #
Talon Reports: Note DoD says they can "receive" reports from anyone. This means that their own agents -- DoD employees -- can be the "source" of "anonymous data." This is how the JTTf can use an "anonymous source" [themselves] and then say "the source is reliable" -- therefore, "let's have a warrant issued to search."
Also, NSA will forward information to JTT as "investigative leads" -- even through there is no warrant issued. The problem is when the NSA data is used to make arrests.
As it stands, the NSA sourcing -- as we have seen with fisa court, and the fbi lies -- the affidavits will be baloney. We saw the same thing with the Iraq WMD -- non-sense information.
The issue isn't that the information is or isn't flowing [that is a problem, but a separate matter] -- rather, the issue is despite "laws against this" DoD finds ways to get around the rules. But when they are caught -- as now -- what do they do -- they lie more. That's not checks and balances.
Normally, the court will have a "suppression consequence" -- this means that if the court finds out the evidence was obtained illegally -- then to punish law enforcement, they throw out the evidence.
However, the problem with the NSA is this: If the people who are "being monitored" never find out -- there’s no way that NSA or jttf or law enforcement is going to get punished.
SO the question is -- other than holding them accountable for the violations -- how do you deal with nsa and president that violates the law?
The answer: Give Congress an NSA-like monitoring system that goes into the Executive, grabs data, and does to the President what the NSA does to Americans: Watches how the President is or is not following the law by monitoring his conduct, and what his people are doing.
NSA-power, if it is to be checked has to be checked by the courts -- with the fisa -- and also with a similar system in the Congress: using nsa-like technology to grind the president and joint staff into submission: "we will watch you, and prevent you in the future using this nsa-technology to violate the law. " This can be part of any audit which Congress does; and can be set up just as easily as the NSA monitoring program for Americans.
What is Bush hiding, and why does the President not want the Congress to monitor the President? The President can't say that he has "privilege" or "inherent authority" to do this -- rather, Article 1 Section 8 gives the congress the power to write rules, and "do what it has to" to make sure that the President's power is checked.
Article II Section 2 also gives the Senate -- the inherent power to check the President. It stands to reason that if the NSA is spying on Americans, Congress can-- under the Constitution -- spy on the President to make sure that he is complying with fisa: This falls under article 1 Section 8 "rule making" power that gives congress the power to make rules to ensure that its rules are followed.
Congress has the inherent authority to check the President’s compliance with fisa.
Constant |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:08 pm | #
Redd - You stated "Finally, we get to the big reveal of the day. As a sort of throwaway line, Fitz tosses out a live grenade to flush the game out of the underbrush, if there is any to be found..." and then went on to say "It's going to be a fun few days to see whether anyone gets flushed out of the underbrush. Myself, I'd like to see a big, fat skunk get his hands caught in the cookie cache."
How much of that underbrush is in Crawford, Texas?
Stephen Parrish, CPA |
02.01.06 - 8:08 pm | #
In a variation of what seems like the old bait and switch tactic, Bush tells us last night that we are addicted to oil and need to go cold turkey, and today he defends Exxon's obscene profits saying, "I think that basically the price is determined by the marketplace and that's the way it should be." In other words, stick it to 'em, boys.
Oklahoma kiddo |
02.01.06 - 8:12 pm | #
Wasn't that letter a hoot? "We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed." Pertinent to the charges! Love it!
The e-mail revelation was a nice touch. My guess is that the e-mail servers at the White House are a lot harder to scrub than anyone thought. There's also the Blackberry factor--anyone know how e-mails to and from Blackberries work? Are there copies of those logged somewhere, in case the network goes down?
I'm with Redd--you can almost hear Fitz saying "Morons!" at the end of many of the lines.
Frank Probst |
02.01.06 - 8:13 pm | #
We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed.
In the same letter where he says:
As you are aware, your client has not been charged with a substantive violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793. Accordingly, your client is not entitled to discovery of sensitive national security materials pertinent only to a prosecution of a substantive violation of that statute. (Ex. C, p.1)
does that mean he could well have a bunch of emails, which the WH tried to delete, that could prove an espionage charge act against Libby, if Fitz decided to bring one? Maybe I'm taking an overly optimistic read on this, but Fitz's comment seems like a thinly veiled threat -- i.e. "I have the deleted emails and if you keep pushing me I'll use them."
What do you guys think?
Adam |
02.01.06 - 8:15 pm | #
Blackberry traffic actually goes through those socialistic blubber-eating Canucks! Highly encrypted to be sure (3 layers!) but thru Canada!!!
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:17 pm | #
ABC's The Note reports that the Plame grand jury met this morning
Rob |
02.01.06 - 8:22 pm | #
I think Alito is just toying with us. He holds all the cards. His ruling today does nothing to convince me that he isn't the very same mild looking but dangerous wingnut that he was on Monday.
walking g |
02.01.06 - 8:23 pm | #
Rob -- actually, I think the Note said they were scheduled to meet. They are scheduled to meet every Wednesday and Friday -- but I didn't get any specific information from any sources that Fitz actually met with them. He's using a regular G/J -- so other US attorneys also have access to them for other cases as well. Unless Fitz or one of his prosecutorial team is meeting with them, they are likely dealing with a different case altogether if they are in session.
ReddHedd |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:26 pm | #
Question - did anyone catch the paragraph regarding search warrants & intercepted communications on page 6 of Ex. C? Do the references to Title III and "at the direction of the prosecution team" limit that statement in any meaningful way?
another anon |
02.01.06 - 8:26 pm | #
This part of the letter is also tantalizing:
We aso note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors. We expect that such conduct will be the subject of proof at trial in that we intend to introduce Libby's grand jury transcript in evidence and Mr. Libby has testified that the purpose of his July 8 meeting with Ms. Miller was to transmit information cocerning the NIE. Our anticipated basis for offering such evidence is that such facts are inextricably intertwined with the narrative of the events of spring 2003, as Libby's testimony itself makes plain.
(Emphasis mine)
This also tends to implicate Libby's "superiors," of which there were only two.
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 8:27 pm | #
Harry, VX shipment stopped in Turkey by V. Plame's counterpro unit = Wayne Madsen theory/rumor that's seen as purty tinfoil-ish.
However, I and many others wondered why Cheney wasn't shipping a lakeful of WMD to Iraq just to make sure of finding it after the invasion, well before I ever heard of Wayne Madsen. Well before the US invaded...because I didn't think Saddam was dumb enough to have WMDs and the intel was obviously trumped-up bullshit. Cheney's boys could've simply shipped the nasty stuff through the Kurds. Maybe he tried to.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 8:28 pm | #
. The new shredder.
bekkieann |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:28 pm | #
I would have imagined the WH was smart enough to 'really' kill e mails, too, but the discussion in Volvo Liberal's diary comments is extremely abstruse, still leaning toward no. Meanwhile cho's rec'd diary comment thread is chock full right now of recovered e mails between Enron execs and WH figures.
They're eating them like bonbons right now. Epluribus is on the case.
jeff |
02.01.06 - 8:28 pm | #
Frank Probst,
"Wasn't that letter a hoot? "We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed." Pertinent to the charges! Love it!"
We should be able to get a feel for this judge as far as which way the wind blows after a few rulings on these motions.
Cozumel |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:28 pm | #
The delete button - the new shredder.
bekkieann |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:29 pm | #
Harry - VX in Turkey... someone (I can't remember who) seemed to be moving the VX from Turkey into Iraq after we invaded... I think the point was for us to have some WMD/chemical weapons to find to justify the invasion... it's been awhile and I don't recall the details.
OldCoastie |
02.01.06 - 8:30 pm | #
Adam - I think he has held open the substantive violations possibility from the beginning - but his prosecution is sure, faster-simpler-less discovery tangled- cleaner from an evidentiary standard etc. if he sticks with false statements, perfury and obstruction - a lot of what is being asked for and is classified might get caught up in the web if he had to go forward now with the substantive charges.
The letter made be laugh out loud more than one place - I don't know if I am reading in snark that only exists in my bitter soul or not, but some of the extra spots I thought were pretty funny (excuse typos) were:
I note that our January 18, 2006 telephone conference was productive in achieving a clearer understanding of the areas where we disagree …
Kinda makes me wish I had an audio of that call.
We do not agree that all documents reflecting favorably on Mr. Libby’s character or reputation for truthfulness or reflecting his propensity to comply with laws, regulations and non-disclosure agreements or of assuring that others complied with those regulations constitute Brady material (nor that such materials could be easily defined) as prior instances of non-criminal conduct are not considered exculpatory.
ROFL - I think this is the "even the devil gets a day off" response? prior instances of non-criminal conduct are not considered exculpatory - uhyessir.
By way of illustrative (but not exhaustive) example, you seek all documents relating to any juvenile arrest of any potential government witness in a case where there will be no witnesses where any such arrest would be remotely recent or relevant to trial.
This one has to hurt Judy - but someday, someone has to bravely stand up and say, "OLD PEOPLE - 'Kay?"
Mary |
02.01.06 - 8:35 pm | #
I just hope that Fitz doesn't discuss this case over the phone, in his car, on the internets or anywhere else that hasn't been, ah, uh, scrubbed.
Unless he's got watchers for the watchers, which would, then, be kinda interesting.
SpringBored |
02.01.06 - 8:36 pm | #
Harry, OldCoastie -- Sibel Edmonds may have heard some info about a Turkish-American group aiding with the VX. WayneMadsenReport.com had a post about it on 11-NOV, more details there.
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:37 pm | #
Adam, Mary, et al,
Maybe Fitz knows he's fighting a three-level chess game, and knows how their next moves in the court of public opinion. It would be a terrible shame for some of those, ahhh, "non-deleted" emails to surface in the New Yorker or the Financial Times.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 8:39 pm | #
The exhibit c letter at Raw Story, how did they get it? Did Fitz's team leak it? Now that would be a first?
Soulard Blues |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:44 pm | #
Soulard -- probably pulled it off the Federal pacer system. That's where I got my copy. ;-)
ReddHedd |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:47 pm | #
Just when Turdblossom thought he was in
the clear to surface and spew his crap around
the nation, now comes Fitz again saying to
this despicable crowd-----I have those deleted
e-mails on all of you-----go have sleep apneas
you bastards---obstruction of justice is like
obstruction of the oxygen in a system of justice. Check mate.
Sam |
02.01.06 - 8:49 pm | #
Can't remember exactly when we covered this email stuff, but yeah, it's damned hard to completely obliterate emails. There's only one sure way and it would have left a wake the size of the QE2 behind it, based on what I believe the White House's IT policies would have been at the time of the original emails.
Think about this, too, didn't come up in our email-related discussion a few months ago: after 9/11, everybody and his brother was scrambling to reassess disaster recovery practices. I'm sure the White House went through the same motions. They would have beefed up the redundancy and mirroring to ensure that the government would continue to run without interruption in the event of another terrorist attack. Even if we took the tin-foily LIHOP position, IT staffers still would have gone through the exercise of reevaluating disaster recovery practices. They would have a bunch of ways to recover electronic communications.
The emails are there. And somebody has evidence of deliberate efforts to umm, un-archive emails, too. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in the Grand Jury's meeting room.
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:50 pm | #
But to some, Alito is checkmate
SpringBored |
02.01.06 - 8:50 pm | #
That letter! OMG - short translation.
"I got you, a**hole. I know where you live. I know what wakes you up at night. I know who you had a crush on in high school. (Cheryl, homeroom.) I know what you had for f**kin' breakfast. I OWN you - a'hole. Try it. Please."
annxburns |
02.01.06 - 8:52 pm | #
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush's domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.
The Justice Department is balking at the request so far, administration officials said, arguing that the legal opinions would add little to the public debate because the administration has already laid out its legal defense at length in several public settings.
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:52 pm | #
We all have our favorites.
The line I hold dearest is right up front: "We are making available to you all information obtained from the Office of the Vice President: in essence, open file disclosure regarding the office where your client was employed."
Ha-ha! One amusing interpretation is: 'We'll give you all the documents you no doubt archived on your own.'
Another, even more fun interpretation would be that this line, coming early on - in the intro, as it were - relates to the disclosure in the concluding paragraph: 'We'll give you everything obtained from the OVP, including e-mails you didn't actually turn over, that we were able to resuscitate by other means, since these OVP e-mails may refresh your memory about some people we'd like you to implicate.'
That's a fun interpretation. Another way to look at this is to highlight the tension between the line quoted and the next line: 'we'll give you the OVP stuff, which doesn't endanger "the ongoing investigation", since the ongoing investigation is now focused' ... where?
Defense? The Oval Office? I forget where the rest of the cast of villains were spending their time. But does anyone think that the relation between these two sentences defines the "ongoing investigation" as being outside the OVP?
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 8:52 pm | #
I figure that Libby's lawyers are probably more interested in minimizing the political damage to the Bush administration than they are in advocating for their client. The longer they can string this inquiry out, the less urgent it will all seem in the grand scheme of things. The incompetent and corrupt media combined with a disengaged American public means that we will have a hard time remembering what it was all about when it started back in '03.
cosmo |
02.01.06 - 8:54 pm | #
Libby's lawyers have to be the worst on earth. The CIA would not have referred the case without bad stuff happening. We know there is a report and it is so secret that not a word has leaked from anywhere although there are dire rumors. Given how Fitzgerald and the judges are going after everyone, it must be very, very bad.
OK, so that means Libby's lawyers think the report cannot be released and they can use their demand to force the Government to drop the charges. But what if the information has dated just enough to show it to the jury? What if the judge decides that it does not have to be released?
What if Libby is convicted and the judge uses it in sentencing?
Eli Rabett |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 8:54 pm | #
does that mean he could well have a bunch of emails, which the WH tried to delete, that could prove an espionage charge act against Libby, if Fitz decided to bring one? Maybe I'm taking an overly optimistic read on this, but Fitz's comment seems like a thinly veiled threat -- i.e. "I have the deleted emails and if you keep pushing me I'll use them."
What do you guys think?
Adam | 02.01.06 - 8:15 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------
---------
I think this was a shot across Team Rove's bow. Libby was in constant face-to-face contact with Cheney, so the two probably didn't e-mail much, and I just can't see Bush using a computer. The only big fish that leaves in the pond is Rove. And we know Rove has a history of misplacing e-mails. Libby's got a strong motive to cut a deal right now. Fitz is giving Rove a last chance to get in on the action. Fitz is just waiting to see who cracks first.
Frank Probst |
02.01.06 - 8:55 pm | #
Alice Marshall >"...All government agencies, especially the White House, have elaborate records management software, including managment of email..."
Agreed
I seriously doubt that any federal government IT person would allow electronic files (e-mail etc) to be completely destroyed; I know a lot about bureaucracies and one thing they ALWAYS do is "cover their ass" (It is a major Prime Directive of their "culture")
It seems to me that it is certainly posible that the local backups were tampered with (which is what the Fritzers have probably been looking at) but there are other (off-site) backups since that is how IT folks do things
"Cover their ass" ya know
This all points back to Iran-Contra which involved a similar round of e-mail deletions that the perps thought they could get away with
Gonna be "interesting times" for sure in The Year of The Dog
Woof, Woof !!!
"...you cannot save your face and your ass at the same time..." - vachon@shadrach.net
daCascadian |
02.01.06 - 8:56 pm | #
Ssssssizzzzzzzle.....That Fitz sure can telegraph. I feel so happy.
meta |
02.01.06 - 8:56 pm | #
And since it seems momentarily relevant, I just want to say that my e-mail name, chosen long before Patrick Fitzgerald had anything to do with this case, is meant to memorialize another heroic prosecutor: Giovanni Falcone was one of the Milan magistrates who helped bring to light some of the mafiosi connections of the Italian government in the 90's. He was ultimately murdered.
Knock on wood, since that's not a thing to say lightly in this context. Falcone is a hero of mine.
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 8:56 pm | #
During the summer of 2003 through the fall of 2003, the team, whose members who were not named by sources, is said to have interviewed many Iraqi intelligence and former intelligence officers. The UN source says that the political problem discussed had more to do with solving the lack of WMD than anything else.
“They come in the summer of 2003, bringing in Iraqis, interviewing them,” the UN source said. “Then they start talking about WMD and they say to [these Iraqi intelligence officers] that ‘Our President is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?’”
The source said intelligence officers understood quickly what they were being asked to do and that the assumption was they were being asked to provide WMD in order for coalition forces to find them.
“But the guys were thinking this is absurd because anything put down would not pass the smell test and could be shown to be not of Iraqi origin and not using Iraqi methodology,” the source added.
Former and current US intelligence officers explain that such forensics is essential and would have in fact proved if a weapons stash found was using Iraqi methodology.
Read the whole story. It implicates Cheney and Feith.
Re Scrubbing. Methinks the White House and the OVP have "scrub-at-the-push-of-a-button" capability and have no need to call in a technician to do it for them. Come on, folks.
My father worked in the code room of the Pentagon circa 1948. This was the day of incredibly mechanically complex code machines used to decode "eyes only" messages from embassys and agents abroad. Each machine sat in a safe and had a thermite bomb on top of it. If ordered, any code room worker could slam shut the door to the safe and push a button which ignited the thermite bomb. Within minutes the code machine woud be a puddle of molten metal.
This was how national security nutcases thought in the forties. You think that in the new millenium they didn't obsesses over how to erase their tracks from computers without a trace without having to call in the hired help? GMAFB.
kaleidescope |
02.01.06 - 8:57 pm | #
There is a multi-level game going on (I can't see the Prosecutor leaking emails though).
IMO, there are more ties with Scooter to Rove; Rove to Abramoff; Ralston to everyone; Hadley and the Niger docs and Plame's work, Cheney in the middle, etc. to predict with reasonable certainty and while waiting is very hard - if Libby does a crash and burn on the discovery, he is going forward and really tight issues and evidence and I can't see how he walks.
So there are all kinds of different points for pressure - like Ralston - but some of those involve other DOJ investigations - like Abramoff - just too many possiblities.
A prosecutor type like RH would know best, but if it were me, and I was involved as a career DOJ lawyer and a related case like the Abramoff involved the possiblity of another career DOJ, as acting US Atty, maybe getting demoted and slapped back by Admin officials bc his investigtation was being done too well--- I'd take that part personally and if it tracks back to Rove, I would be willing to sit back for awhile and make sure that everyone builds the best mousetrap possible.
Speculation only (and for some reason I am still snickering over - evidence of having spent at least some portion of your adult life engaged in non-criminal pastimes (like flossing) is not exactly "exculpatory." Maybe I'm just too easily amused?
Mary |
02.01.06 - 8:58 pm | #
First, sincere thanks to RH, Jane and commenters. I started reading in late October--came for the Fitz, and stayed--but haven't posted yet. This is a terrific community of informed and passionate people. I'm sure there are many who, like me, read and learn from you all regularly but haven't said thanks yet.
I was writing to my Senators this evening to urge them to go to the mats in the NSA wiretap hearings. As I read Redd's article, I thought, "Why don't we offer the Bush gang a deal? They can read my mail and listen to my calls, if we can do the same with all of theirs."
Thanks again to you all.
Stewart Schoder |
02.01.06 - 9:00 pm | #
daCascadian, I think you're being more than a bit naive. I've witnessed such a cover-up, in a matter far less weighty, of mostly local interest, that would have done nothing but shredded the career of a local pol. I was the author of memos that were withheld. I had submitted them for discovery, but they weren't passed along.
I ultimately found out what had happened, and quietly passed them along myself to the lawyers of the plaintiff (this was a civil case, not a criminal one).
Government officials are quite willing and able to withhold, shred and even scrub computer files. It seems unlikely that people like Cheney and Libby are just hiring guys off Craigslist to come in and run their e-mail servers. They no doubt have people they trust taking care of this stuff.
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 9:01 pm | #
Cliff May has claimed ever since 2003 that Plame’s identity was an open secret. He has said in print and on TV that he knew about Plame prior to the publication of Novak’s column. According Fitzgerald, though, it appears that May’s repeated claims are not true.
Cliff May wrote that Novak's July 14, 2003 column about Plame "wasn't news to me. I had been told that." Cliff May claimed he knew about Wilson’s wife when he wrote an anti-Wilson screed on July 11 but purposely didn't include it "because it didn't seem particularly relevant." (This Cliff May article has relevant links to the above quoted words: http://www.nationalreview.com/ma...0309291022.asp)
In the Fitz letter to Libby’s defense team, Fitz lists all the known reporters (Pincus, Miller, Cooper, Woodward, and Novak) who knew of Plame/Wilson’s wife prior to July 14. Yet Fitz’s list doesn’t include May. (See pg. 4 of Jan.23, 2006 letter.) Cliff May told David Corn that he (May) had been interviewed by the FBI during their investigation of the Plame matter. (http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2005/07/
rove_scandal_qu.php ).
Therefore, one can conclude that Cliff May misrepresented his own knowledge about Valerie Plame. He apparently didn’t have much to tell the investigators regarding his own knowledge of the case otherwise he should have been listed in Fitz’s letter. That he wasn’t listed suggests that he *didn’t* know Plame’s identity until Novak published it. Maybe Cliff May has an explanation for this (I can’t wait to read it), but so far he’s been silent at The Corner.
Jim E. |
02.01.06 - 9:05 pm | #
The interesting thing about those emails- It's very very hard to destroy magnetic media, like hard drives so that the data once encoded is unreadable. And such destruction, in and of itself points to serious guilt as well as self-awareness of the guilt and intention of covering up the violations.
Libby knew indicated in his "Aspens" letter it was just a matter of time before the house fell down.
The president and vice-president should have been impeached long ago.
patience |
02.01.06 - 9:06 pm | #
I have a question for Redd, Jane or anyone else w/ Crim Law experience.
I have thought since last fall that Fitz had the grounds for a wiretap on these guys. And my hunch was that, if the i's were dotted and t's crossed, Hogan would grant the warrant.
The first paragraph under "Other Requests" on p. 6 of the letter states:
"There have been no search warrants executed and no communications intercepted pursuant to Title III at the direction of the prosecution team during the course of this investigation."
My question is - could there have been commuications intercepted pursuant to some authority other than Title III or at the direction of someone other than the prosecution team, or does that phrase cover the gamut of all possible interceptions? Cause if the latter, that statement seems to close off the possibility that there have been wiretaps.
another anon |
02.01.06 - 9:06 pm | #
Erasing all traces of e-mail seems pretty difficult to me. There are at least two copies, one on sender's computer, one on receiver's. Then it migh be auto-archived on each's computer, and probably at one or two central mail servers someplace. And then traces of mail in form of headers. If you goof around with your e-mail system, you will proabably have a tool to search for "related mail" or "linked messages" or "conversation thread" or something like that. This has header information, which is quite detailed if you want to look at all of it. Then there is all that junk we ignore at bottom of e-mail when he hit "reply" or "forward." Usually that is, you know, just junk like a string of all previouis messages and replies on that thread. Then there are records of names of attached files. All sorta stuff.
Seems pretty hard to destroy all traces of e-mail and all traces of what it all was about unless you call in specialist who is very familiar with all aspects of computer system and knows to checks on all computers, and servers, and all linked lists and indexes of anyone who who was on a particular set of e-mail exchanges.
And I don't even know much about this stuff. I would like to hear a computer expert speak English about it. I've seen a couple of blog entries on it, but they are in computer systemese.
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 9:06 pm | #
Heh..But...SOMEBODY runs the servers...
It's like an old saying, if you want to know what's going on, ask the cook.
there's some WH OEB server guys who got the Fitz squeeeeeeze, methinks.
SpringBored |
02.01.06 - 9:07 pm | #
kaleidescope -- we're living in an entirely different world.
The specs I've read for government email systems means somebody got an order to destroy evidence. The email system itself isn't much different from that most commercial enterprises use, and only implementation of a military wipe would work, leaving a MASSIVE hole. Unless the AG, VP, POTUS and immediate staff knew where to find the other mirrors, they'd have to order somebody to mil-wipe them, too, again leaving another hole. And if they only did an "oops, delete" on individual emails, there's still a trail.
Sorry, but those days of pushing a button to melt an entire system are gone. Not to mention that this kind of activity -- destroying evidence -- might have given any self-respecting geek serious pause.
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:09 pm | #
To be practical--I work a seventy-five hour week and deal with people's private cell phone and credit card records with a support staff of two people. And I have yet to make a mistake that couldn't be borne out by a five-minute search. If the emails existed, Fitz can find them. My boss sure as hell can.
Starling |
02.01.06 - 9:09 pm | #
"We are making available to you all information obtained from the Office of the Vice President: in essence, open file disclosure regarding the office where your client was employed."
I like it too Falcone1204. Here's yet another way to read it as well (more another layer - I think the "hey, we're giving you the stuff you should aleady have unless Cheney has decided to cut you loose" part is definitely there).
Anyway - Libby's job title(s) actually involved working for the Pres as well. It would be fun with Dick and Jane to watch his lawyers say, "Well, hey, he worked for the PRESIDENT TOO and, uh wait, no, strike that, um, nah, we didn't really say that or ah, well, yeah, gotcha, that's right umm, uh, never mind."
Mary |
02.01.06 - 9:10 pm | #
Yeah, but how many servers, and how many computers. Do you keep track of all the times you hit reply and forward? There was quite a crew involved in this operation, so lots of threads probably bouncing around.
This will be interesting, I bet.
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 9:10 pm | #
There's an IT drone, a GS9 out there, somewhere, singing like a canary.
Davis X. Machina |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:13 pm | #
It's difficult to erase all traces of e-mail and computer files on a machine that's about to be seized.
But nobody seized any of these computers. The local PC's and the servers have all been running ever since. All magnetic trace of these e-mails has long since been overwritten.
And presumably the relevant e-mails were being written back and forth between people who haven't yet earned the sobriquet 'unindicted coconspirators', though we can always hope. So it's certainly possible that they mutually erased each others' messages.
Most likely, Fitz has just a few e-mails from one or more sources that don't show up in the archives, pointing to the existence of other messages. He's pissed off about it. But he has written that the evidence disappeared, and it's unlikely that he was unaware of the means of getting it, if it might still be on a server somewhere. So I think most of the deleted e-mails are really gone.
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 9:13 pm | #
Rayne,
"The emails are there. And somebody has evidence of deliberate efforts to umm, un-archive emails, too. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in the Grand Jury's meeting room."
That may be, but specific to Libby, Fitzgerald says he doesn't have them (discovery). So in other words, he's not sitting on anything exculpatory to Libby as far as that goes with respect to those emails. The larger ramifications (beyond Libby or additional charges) are another matter.
Cozumel |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:13 pm | #
Falcone, et al,
No offense intended, but internet architecture is fundamentally at odds with your assumptions. At best, they can only scrub, or appear to have scrubbed, some of the emails that were strictly internal. And as anyone knows, you just can't trust IT people. ;-)
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 9:13 pm | #
does that mean he could well have a bunch of emails, which the WH tried to delete,
it is certainly possible
but the only man who knows is not talking
Alice Marshall |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:14 pm | #
my favorite part is 'pertinent to the charges'!! like a knife dangling over his head. how about, we are aware of evidence pertinent to charges looming....
annie |
02.01.06 - 9:16 pm | #
Stewart Schoder -- welcome!
ember |
02.01.06 - 9:16 pm | #
My 16 words:
With his email bomb, Fitz has just ruined President Bush's post State of the Union Bounce
SpringBored |
02.01.06 - 9:17 pm | #
Jim E. | 02.01.06 - 9:05 pm
Would be interesting, wouldn't it, if the emails in question here in this post and thread were someday made public as part of the evidence...and in it was an email from Rove to May coaching May's response. Heh.
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:18 pm | #
"There have been no search warrants executed and no communications intercepted pursuant to Title III at the direction of the prosecution team during the course of this investigation."
--------------------------------------------------
---------
"At the direction of the prosecution team." Missed that part the first time around. Fitz isn't one to shade the truth, so my guess is that this means no wiretaps. But it's fun to speculate. Does the FBI count as part of the prosecution team?
Frank Probst |
02.01.06 - 9:19 pm | #
Hum...Blackberry traffic ... Canada
Echelon ????
Wilson46201 | Homepage | 02.01.06 - 8:17 pm | #
Oh by the way, Giving thanks for Turkey...and yes radiation prior or post explosion can be easily traced to origin…
Harry |
02.01.06 - 9:19 pm | #
falcone1204: and also, a regular erase doesn't erase at all, and even really erasing (ie, overwriting) doesn't really erase in way that prevents recovery, unless you do it lots of times, not just once or twice. And with long threads of replies and forwards, sitting around, it just seems really hard to remove all traces these days.
I guess we would know if any computers have been seized. Right?
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 9:20 pm | #
Wilson -- that NYT article sure makes it look like we're in for a wild ride next week. On the one hand you have:
Mr. Specter said his view was that the operation "violates FISA — there's no doubt about that."
which is pretty unequivocal, much more so than what I expected from him at this point. On the other hand, there's:
"Without the Justice Department memos and without more witnesses, it's hard to se how anything other than a rehashing of the administration line is going to happen," Mr. Schumer said Wednesday. "I am worried that these hearings could end up telling us very little when the American people are thirsty to find out what happened here."
Adam |
02.01.06 - 9:21 pm | #
impeach Cheney first
the exile |
02.01.06 - 9:22 pm | #
No offense taken. It's not entirely clear to me that OVP-Defense-State e-mails are sent over the open internet. Long before we had any internet access in my office, we had an e-mail network.
It's seems possible to me that sensitive government e-mails at the highest level pass over some more restricted network.
Even if it is passing over the internet, I don't believe your discussion of internet architecture is meaningful. The messages pass from a PC to a server connected to the internet, likely in this case a server within the OVP (hell, even my governmental office has direct access not mediated by an IP), and from that server, they are sent out in small bites by circuitous routes to the intended server. The only ones who could resurrect the e-mail would be the owners of recipient's server, the owners of the outgoing server, and any IP used. But again, senior officials with clearance, even if sending messages over the internet and not some internal network, definitely are not connecting to a system that is, after all, an outgrowth of the Defense Department computer network, via some damn AOL server in northern Virginia. Their messages are going directly into the ethereal flow from their own proprietary servers.
And the tech geeks they brought up with them for three decades, stowing them away in side corners of the Navy during the Clinton years, almost certainly CAN be trusted in a different way from some guy you hire off the street. Like I said, they're not hiring from Craigslist.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 9:24 pm | #
"The network is the computer". The individual originating and receiving Email devices are rather unimportant in an Email system. Scrub them all you wish (or thermite-bomb them). The messages are dealt with on servers which are highly backed-up and all activity on the servers is logged. Looking at the logs is logged! With the rise of the Imperial Presidency comes the rise of the Imperial Bureaucracy which requires a larger Imperial Computer System. The bigger the system, the more complex it becomes and thus harder to fuck with...
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:24 pm | #
In his letter, Fitzgerald reffered to Libby's "superiors." There were only two.
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 9:25 pm | #
Whoops. That was dumb. I meant to address my reply TO MarcLord, but instead, I must have typed it where name was, so it looks like MarcLord sent a chiding reply to the earlier e-mail from MarcLord.
isn't Andy Card, chief of staff, technically Rove and Libbys boss (superior) ?
Wilson46201 |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:28 pm | #
Falcone, no problem. The only chiding replies will be sent by my toddler, who is climbing all over me and dribbling his formula bottle (intentionally) on me.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 9:29 pm | #
The biggest thing we have going for us is their incompetence. Things do have a way of breaking down in the end when you can't do anything well but propagandize and lie. The deletion of emails, badly done so that you get caught, is just another example of this.
kedger |
02.01.06 - 9:29 pm | #
Frank - thanks for your reply. I think the FBI group assigned to Fitz would count as part of the prosecution team. However, "pursuant to Title III" modifies "at the direction of the prosecution team." I don't know what Title III is. I also don't know if there is another group at the FBI that might be feeding Fitz information, even though not technically part of the "team."
Maybe I'm just enamored of my pet hunch, but given that Fitz put so very many bombshells in subordinate clauses in this letter, I'm wondering if that's not another one.
another anon |
02.01.06 - 9:31 pm | #
Sorry, then there would be three. But Fitzgerald's reference was still plural.
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 9:31 pm | #
falcone1204
you are in WAY over your head on this
you may know a lot about the law and the world of paper
it ain`t the same in the world of electrons and such devices
many others here are more "tuned in" than thee; anon_1 & SpringBored for example
Craig`s List ???
get real buddy cause this ain`t Amateur Hour we`re covering here
there are levels within levels of knowledge to cover the details necessary to make an educated guess as to what the possibilities are & so far I`ve only related the social-bureaucratic superfical stuff
My money is on Fitz in the long run; lots of levels down this rabbit hole
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." – Edward R. Murrow
daCascadian |
02.01.06 - 9:33 pm | #
Cozumel --
I took Fitz' letter on the face of it, that he had nothing to provide to Libby's team in the way of email that were specifically related to charges against Libby.
However...if a current or future prosecutor had a need to investigate WH or OVP officials/staff, there would be some interesting holes that someone would have to poke around and someone else would have to explain. This is the interesting part to my mind; was Fitz actively looking into Rove's email to help him refresh his memory? was Fitz suggesting that somebody in WH/OVP might better 'fess up soon because he knew about the holes in the evidence? Was he simply communicating to someone in WH/OVP that he has them on "obstruction"?
Gad, I can't wait. Fitz, bring it on!!
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:34 pm | #
ReddHedd, thanks so much for another "fix."
John Casper |
02.01.06 - 9:35 pm | #
Also, Falcone (nice handle), despite my current toddler issues, I was once interim Chief Security Officer for a sophisticated automated call processing product at an old-line communications company that was named in a law suit today. Interim because they belatedly told me to undergo a security clearance, and I looked for employment elsewhere. For 6 months prior to that I got to talk to the people who made the internet backbone and its security possibilities.
MarcLord |
02.01.06 - 9:35 pm | #
Can't Fitz get the WH records of comings and goings during the 12 hours before official notification about the investigation occurred?
Late night computer techies coming and going.
ArtShu |
02.01.06 - 9:40 pm | #
Frank Probst | 9:19 pm --
Are you thinking what I'm thinking, that Fitz might have surveillance data that he didn't have to direct/request as new surveillance under Title III?
Rayne |
Homepage |
02.01.06 - 9:40 pm | #
"Libby's Motions" by emptywheel
Yesterday and today, we've gotten more news that Libby's defense team is requesting all manner of stuff. ReddHedd explains that this is normal operating procedure, not to read too much into it. And while I'll cede to RH's expert judgment on legal issues, I wonder whether there isn't something more going on..."
"Libby's Ocean of Motions," Part Two
by emptywheel "RawStory has a copy of Fitzgerald's response to Libby's lawyers, so I thought I'd do a document dump of what it tells us http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com...he_next_hurrah/
John Casper |
02.01.06 - 9:40 pm | #
An insider is helping Fitzy but who ? Fitzy would not know emails were missing by guessing.
Can't think of anyone in particular. Who would help Fitzy nailing the whole gang? It is big deal now if it can be proven emails were destroyed.
jess |
02.01.06 - 9:43 pm | #
I doubt that they would have used techies to scrub stuff. They would have little incentive not to crumble when push came to shove.
Remember that when this story broke, the WH expected a very friendly investigation from Justice headed at the time by none other than John Ashcroft. Some amateurish deletions from the local machines might have seemed to be all that was necessary.
They didn't anticipate at the time a special porosecutor rolling in, perhaps with the kind of FBI experts that are a little more tech savvy.
The point was made earlier...there are back-ups, back-ups of back-ups, access logs and on and on....
sonofslothrop |
02.01.06 - 9:44 pm | #
But, as another commenter noted, how would you cover up the cover up? You'd have to shut down the normal operating system and access everything in another way, in order to avoid the logging some one looking at or tampering with the logs, and then there is the actual files too.
Unless they were evil geniuses that had a special easy-erase snoop-proof operating and mail system installed.
OK, now I am flying out of the top of my hat and getting in over my head. I guess I keep checking in hopes that some "anonymous" who used to work at WH computer system checks in, or Sam Spade has the damn e-mails and releases them for the hell of it later tonight, or something.
I can hardly wait to see what this comes to, and if so, what it might be. OK... I feel Plame-ology addiction syndrome. No more. I check in tomorrow!
anon_1 |
02.01.06 - 9:47 pm | #
A sad aside here. Distressing to see that navytimes.com is running (just below their coverstory on the Joint Chiefs anti cartoon letter) and ad for...
The independent ibot mobility system, "created for people who want to be spontaneous and independent."
Internal White House e-mails wouldn't pass through the Internet. They would be on a private network. There are likely multiple layers: a White House-only network behind its own firewall and then another, wider network that would include the various Departments of the executive branch. Other networks, such as that of the DoD, would also be insulated from the wider network. Even inside DoD, the various service branches and other organizations would also have firewalled and encrypted internal e-mail services, I'm sure.
But, as others more sophisticated than I in these matters have pointed out, the WH mails would have been mirrored more than once for archiving, and some of the archiving would be automatic--that is, it would be instantly mirrored to sites buried under mountains with verifiable checksums or whatever other reqirements there are for reliable archiving. Whether Fitgerald can get access to those data or not, they undoubtedly still exist somewhere.
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 9:50 pm | #
Not to beat a dead horse but for anyone that cares to really get inside the thinking of a professional IT person when it comes to backups & disaster recovery I have a book for you to check out, thumb through, or whatever (there are others of course...)
"The Backup Book: Disaster Recovery from Desktop to Data Center" - Dorian J. Cougias ISBN 0-9729039-0-9
"...a culture of hiring children to do work that requires experience leads to childish results." - Robert Cahn
daCascadian |
02.01.06 - 10:02 pm | #
I'm sorry, but the Daily News story is a piece of crap. It completely misrepresents what Fitzgerald says in his letter. We don't know yet whether there is any significance in the fact that not all emails were properly archived on the White House computer system. I suspect the famous Rove-Hadley email falls into that category. But that doesn't yet tell us whether Fitzgerald suspects human agency rather than a technical issue. And if he had real reason to suspect human agency, wouldn't he either have indicted Rove already or not revealed this piece of knowledge to Libby's team and the rest of us?
As for Dickerson, it's unclear where Fitzgerald is getting his information, but note that he says they understand this, which suggests they didn't get the info directly from Dickerson's testimony. But here's what Dickerson, who was on Bush's Africa trip, wrote on October 31 2005:
More astonishingly, we learn from the Fitzgerald indictment that Ari Fleischer knew about Plame and didn't tell anyone at all. He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position.
on a long Bush trip to Africa, Fleischer and Bartlett prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic origins of the Wilson trip.
So pretty obviously the government officials are Bartlett and Fleischer, though that still raises the question of how the special prosecutor understands that plural government officials talked with Dickerson, and why they understand it rather than being aware of it, as they are with regard to knowledge of the other reporters' knowledge. Does this come from Bartlett's testimony? I've thought that Bartlett was a likely suspect as Pincus' July 12 source, who we know has identified himself to Fitzgerald.
Jeff |
02.01.06 - 10:04 pm | #
notjonathon,
There's a vast difference between finding a checksum error and finding a copy of Scooter's e-mail.
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 10:07 pm | #
falcone--
I was only trying to point out that there are bureaucratic impediments to scrubbing all the information.
notjonathon |
02.01.06 - 10:18 pm | #
notjonathan,
You're right that there are potential hurdles to jump.
Your response was much more useful than most of those saying 'there's no way because it's in an astonishingly secure set of infinitely replicating and self-regenerating archives, all designed by forms of artificial intelligence not answerable to human agency.
There is a back-up system. Parts of it may be automatic. No doubt even the parts that are automatic are understood by the techies that work in OVP, who themselves would have the highest security clearances and years of .
It's not impossible to wipe out portions of an archive and its mirrors.
It is difficult, and you took the time to sketch some of the difficulties. Offering facts is a healthier form of argument than most internet discussion take, and I appreciate it.
falcone1204 |
02.01.06 - 10:36 pm | #
Redd, thanks for yet another of your clear, detailed and informative posts on the Plame investigation. It's been awhile.
Off to read the exhibit now.
Dingo Kidneys |
02.01.06 - 10:36 pm | #
Redd, that was a great piece! Thanks for sorting through what most of us don't have the patience for.
Katie! |
02.01.06 - 11:44 pm | #
Redd, you're really in your element with this stuff - this layperson can only marvel at the complexities of it all - and I suspect this is just your warm-up lap for the real deal coming down the pike.
Fitz, don't fail me now!
punaise |
02.02.06 - 12:14 am | #
Thanks so much Redd.
So much!
sans-culotte |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 1:21 am | #
You have to wonder just how well the folks who did the actual deletion were sleeping last night. They're no doubt career civil servants. On the one hand, they should be easy to flip, because they can say that it wasn't their decision. On the other hand, if they flip, they'll be blackballed. Blackballed--jail? Blackballed--jail?
Not a happy pair of options.
Jay |
02.02.06 - 2:27 am | #
Is Bartlett the man who scrubbed Bush's TANG files? Do I have that right? If a man did a good scrub once, wouldn't you tell him to get the job done when you needed another cleansing?
"We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed."
The wording that confuses me, maybe because I can't read the pdf due to inexplicable crashes on my pc when I try to read pdg, is that Fitz is answering someone's statement that something has been destroyed? How would that come up? It would have to be Libby's lawyers claiming something was destroyed, wouldn't it? So is Fitz then saying, uh, no, got it right here?
aquart |
02.02.06 - 2:44 am | #
Who said it?
"I've got the Feds so far up my ass I can taste Brylcreem."
a.) Scooter Libby
b.) Uncle Junior
c.) Both a and b.
roxtar |
02.02.06 - 4:18 am | #
What sweet words! Plamegate analyzed once more. Makes my day!
Cee |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 4:44 am | #
I have experience with database management and know that a critical database like this one is probably mirrored (simultaneously written) to more than one database server. Also, the data would be backed up (archived) on a timed schedule to someother media.
One other thing is that when a record is deleted from a database this large it is not actually removed from the database. It's flagged as deleted and does not show up in queries. Because the indexes have to be re-written the record is not actually removed from the database until the records marked for deletion are purged. At that time the record are written and the indexes rebuilt.
Also, note that ALL of the archived copies would have to be remounted and purged to remove those records.
Frank |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 4:49 am | #
messages are dealt with on servers which are highly backed-up and all activity on the servers is logged.
BINGO! this is probably what Fitz has.... the activity logs saying that emails were sent and received --- but when Fitz went looking for those emails, he found that they'd been erased from the system.
... an action which, of course, leaves its own entry in the activity logs....
its possible that Fitz does have the emails, because of the phrasing of his letter...
not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.
in other words, there may have been other "preservation" activities outside "normal" archiving processes....... or emails were preserved somewhere outside of the the "White House system"....
(If, as some folks suspect, this involves the "12 hour gap", its entirely possible that some of the emails may be preserved on the "public" internets, as instructions are emailed to people at home....)
paul lukasiak |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 6:07 am | #
A few comments:
1) Some companies have documentation retention policies which deliberately drive employees to PURGE e-mail on a regular scheduled basis. If you instill a policy which purges all e-mails after say 60 days, then it's not destroying evidence if the evidence was destroyed as part of an auto-purge document retention policy.
2) I don't believe the WH e-mail policy is #1. Fitz even states that e-mails disappeared as exceptions to the WH e-mail archive policy.
3) There's a lot of discussion about this, but an e-mail archive is not the same as a backup / mirror. In my experience, an archive is an OFFLOAD of e-mails to keep your mail file nice, small, and manageable.
4) I can only imagine who at the WH would go to a techie and ask them to remove all evidence of particular e-mails to some techie. That would be some cajones to place your trust in someone outside your circle. I don't think you would have the liberty of picking who'd help you - you'd have to find an authorized WH system administrator to help you. I presume Fitz would have interviewed the sys admin staff also.
5) How does this revelation jive with Rove's "discovered" e-mail? Any implications?
I've retired amd my experience is getting a little dated, but it used to be standard practice to also make a full backup every month and store that off site in a fire-proof safe. Don't know if they did that. But the point is that combing through all those backup copies takes a little time and lots of people would be involved in doing that. The DBA would surely have to be.
Also, one other route whereby these things could be still around: One of the people in my division saved a copy of every e-mail he ever sent or recieved - even confirmation of reciept- to floppy disk. He had every one covering a seven year period. This sort of hyper-methodical person is not all that rare and there could have been some there in that environment too.
Frank |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 6:37 am | #
Dear Redd:
I went over the Fitzgerald presser from Oct 29 in light of the news that there have been deletions of e-mail in the WH and Darth Cheney's office. I was struck again by the theme of "sand in the eyes". Fitz obviously implied that he had a boatload of "information". He also stated that unless someone is charged with a crime, none of that info will be revealed. I think we all understand that and that is why we have such respect for his integrity. He also used the plural a lot in describing the events. Basically I agree with you that there is a whole lot more going on here. I guess the remark that bothered me in the presser was that the "substantial bulk of the work has been done". In parsing this statement one can conclude that despite the mountain of evidence there are a few linchpins missing that would bring a big house of cards down. Perhaps the key to it is the shenanigans of Gonzales in locking down the e-mail system. I also really believe that Cheney is by no means out of the woods here.
In any event a review of some of Fitz's words is included below:
From the WaPo transcript:
In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson.
It was done to all of us.
And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?
FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.
QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, do you have evidence that the vice president of the United States, one of Mr. Libby's original sources for this information, encouraged him to leak it or encouraged him to lie about leaking?
FITZGERALD: I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment.
Now, let me back up, because I know what that sounds like to people if they're sitting at home.
We don't talk about people that are not charged with a crime in the indictment.
FITZGERALD: I would say that about anyone in this room who has nothing to do with the offenses.
We make no allegation that the vice president committed any criminal act. We make no allegation that any other people who provided or discussed with Mr. Libby committed any criminal act.
But as to any person you asked me a question about other than Mr. Libby, I'm not going to comment on anything.
Please don't take that as any indication that someone has done something wrong. That's a standard practice. If you followed me in Chicago, I say that a thousand times a year. And we just don't comment on people because we could start telling, "Well, this person did nothing wrong, this person did nothing wrong," and then if we stop commenting, then you'll start jumping to conclusions. So please take no more.
QUESTION: For all the sand thrown in your eyes, it sounds like you do know the identity of the leaker. There's a reference to a senior official at the White House, Official A, who had a discussion with Robert Novak about Joe Wilson's wife.
QUESTION: Can you explain why that official was not charged?
FITZGERALD: I'll explain this: I know that people want to know whatever it is that we know, and they're probably sitting at home with the TV thinking, "I'm want to jump through the TV, grab him by his collar and tell him to tell us everything they figured out over the last two years."
We just can't do that. It's not because we enjoy holding back information from you; that's the law.
And one of the things we do with a grand jury is we gather information. And the explicit requirement is if we're not going to charge someone with a crime; if we decide that a person did not commit a crime, we cannot prove a crime, doesn't merit prosecution, we do not stand up and say, "We gathered all this information on the commitment that we're going to follow the rules of grand jury secrecy, which say we don't talk about people not charged with a crime, and then at the end say, well, it's a little inconvenient not to give answers out, so I'll give it out anyway."
FITZGERALD: I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment.
It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way.
We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment. "
Kevin J |
02.02.06 - 6:59 am | #
Is it me or is this beginning to look like a smoking gun?
vachon |
02.02.06 - 7:18 am | #
Ok,
searching a bit of history, the White House was using Lotus Notes as late as 2000 as part of a system called ARMS (automated records management system).
There were problems in the installation which caused some email coming in from the internet to not be discovered during the Clinton/Gore years.
"ARMS, a keyword-searchable database, worked with a legacy e-mail system until 1996, when it began archiving e-mail generated using Lotus Notes. The Office of Administration maintained four Lotus Notes e-mail servers, one remote server and one ARMS interface server, which transferred e-mail records from the e-mail servers to ARMS. "
... Check out this link: http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no7/new...ews/1649-
1.html
"The White House likely will have to spend 170 days and $1.8 million to $3 million to reconstruct thousands of e-mail messages that are available only as raw data on server backup tapes, White House counsel Beth Nolan said last month in a letter to the House Government Reform Committee. "
So it seems even if the e-mail does not make it to the archives, there likely is a backup...
hello |
02.02.06 - 8:09 am | #
Oh by the way, Giving thanks for Turkey...and yes radiation prior or post explosion can be easily traced to origin…
It wouldn't be nuke. It would be chemical. It would also likely be similar to the stuff we were providing to Iraq during their time as our good ally as they fought with Iran. It would have been VX. It would have been plain as day, upon forensic examination, that it was US VX and not of Iraqi origin. That has been hit upon in a few previous posts but it bears repeating.
Any attempt to sneak in "WMD" material like VX to produce support for the justification of the war would have fallen apart upon close examination. It was insane to even try (if the story is true).
Praedor Atrebates |
02.02.06 - 8:24 am | #
Here's an article about deleted e-mails recovered from backups in the Enron scandal, and Lotus Notes was used there.
01/16/2002 - Updated 08:51 AM ET
Investigators piecing together Enron's digital trail
WASHINGTON (AP) — The job of recovering the missing Enron accounting documents is falling to computer sleuths whose work can foil the casual use of the delete button. They've been called on before in high-profile cases, looking for suspected spy transmissions and missing Clinton White House e-mails. And now they'll be asked to recover documents from the computers of Arthur Andersen, which acknowledges its employees destroyed thousands of e-mails and paper documents about Enron. Investigators want to know who knew about the problems at Enron, which shocked the financial world and its own employees with its fall from Wall Street grace to bankruptcy.
Read more below
Audio
* USA TODAY's Greg Farrell recaps Andersen case
The Arthur Andersen trial
* Impact to reverberate from Wall Street to D.C.
* Employees see verdict as 'a kick in the teeth'
* Roll of dice pays off for Justice
* Hardin loses battle, but wins stardom
* Full trial coverage
Enron-related stories
* Move afoot for accounting industry cleanup
* Payouts anger former Enron workers
* White House provides Enron-related documents
* White House gives Senate some Enron material
* Bush staff subpoenaed on Enron ties
* Enron-Andersen: The story at a glance
Graphics
* Timeline: The Enron investigation
* Timeline: The fall of energy giant Enron
Computer sleuths move quickly to preserve hard drives and backup tapes before the bits of deleted data are overwritten forever.
"If the data was there, rarely can you not find a sign of it," said Jeff Bedser of Internet Crimes Group in Princeton, N.J. "The closer to the time frame it happened, the better the chance of recovering the data."
"Andersen has said its Houston auditors started deleting Enron e-mails on Oct. 23 and stopped Nov. 9. Bedser said his firm has been able to recover Lotus Notes e-mail messages that were deleted up to eight months earlier. Andersen used Lotus Notes."
So, I wonder how confident people are in their e-mail purge process...
Anybody sweating out there?
hello |
02.02.06 - 8:36 am | #
Missing photo's, Missing E-mails? is this the W/H or comedy central. You can't make up this stuff.
R. Nurse |
02.02.06 - 9:14 am | #
Paul Lukasiak writes:
[i]"its possible that Fitz does have the emails, because of the phrasing of his letter...
""not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.""
in other words, there may have been other "preservation" activities outside "normal" archiving processes....... or emails were preserved somewhere outside of the the "White House system"...."[/i]
When I read this segment of Mr. Fitzgerald's letter yesterday morning I truly "laughed out loud."
He's saying that he knows the procedures and he knows the procedures were violated and they were violated selectively.
I've asked several folk in the past 24 hours if they have ever looked at the "header" information in any one of their emails, and most, though they are all professionals and use computers extensively in their work, respond with some version of "no, what do you mean, what's in the header ...." They also don't understand what a "mail server" actually does and what information it stores. And, after a bit of explanation they now understand how much damage one might cause oneself by selectively (or otherwise) deleting emails from a particular "computer" because what they actually would have done is create a record of their actions.
Card, Libby, Rove, Torture Boy, Rice, Hadley, ...., are probably just as clueless.... and hitting the delete key on their laptops and PCs simply created evidence of their attempts to destroy records because all Mr. Fitzgerald's team needs is a mailserver log from any of a number of sites or an email from any number of senders/receivers and the pattern of selective destruction of evidence could be readily perceived.
Peace,
UL
understandinglife |
Homepage |
02.02.06 - 9:49 am | #
Re: That Bartlett and Fleischer knew
Dan and Ari knew about Plame and tried to steer reporters that way. But Condi Rice did the same thing. Is this a conspiracy?
David |
02.02.06 - 11:16 am | #
So what did Abu Gonzalez and Andy Card do during that 12 hour heads up?
l |
02.02.06 - 2:12 pm | #
I wonder if the missing e-mails were from someone on Air Force One (en route to Africa) written to someone at the White House. I wonder if those messages tell about Wilson/Plame and the plan to out her.
MarkH |
02.02.06 - 5:16 pm | #
The missing e-mails reminds me of what happened when a friend of mine first got a personal computer. I was using Windows 3.1 and he got Win 95. Well, we both studied it and I tried to help him learn it. One time he told me it must be infested with gremlins or something because he'd delete a file one day and the next it would be back. Any chance the White House is infested with Windows software?
Also, the government has a second Internet which is used by national emergency institutions like the government agencies, state offices, hospitals, probably FEMA and the like. Despite that, I'd doubt the White House people would have need of it for communication within the WH.
The more likely question is whether there is automagical backing up which is done without WH personnel knowing it and which is also (handily) out of their reach!
MarkH |
02.02.06 - 5:43 pm | #
What little I know of email and server systems goes something like this: an ADMIN sets up the user privileges for many, many users. These privileges determine levels of 'user access' to server directories, create passwords, and determine the "permissions" for each user in the system.
In other words, the WH server ADMINS would have set up the email accounts, passwords, server directories, and backup procedures for all WH email systems. Let us all hope that Fitz has called in the server administrators, sworn them in, and asked them to testify -- and also to produce server logs of all emails sent, received, deleted, and revised by anyone under suspicion. Let us also hope that Libby and Rove have no power whatsoever over the individuals charged with running the WH email system.
Rove and Libby probably thought they were in charge of the world; however, anyone who has ever dealt with an ISP or a phone company should recognize that the people who *actually* run the world today are those who assign email addresses and passwords.
It would be richly ironic if Libby, Rove, et al were so full of themselves that they thought they really did run the world. They don't. The people who run the world today often have multiple body piercings, listen to really weird music, are too young to remember Watergate, are likely to smoke cigarettes, prefer junky food, don't have much respect for authority in general, and grew up playing video games. Oooooohhhh, it's way too much to hope that the WH servers were administered by funky 20-somethings... I'm sure that we will never get that lucky! But to continue my fantasy...
If Libby, Rove, et al. are so naive that they honestly believed that simply deleting an email from their desktop would somehow "make it vanish" then they needed to take a whole lot more chemistry and physics classes back in high school.
Quick background: a light bulb has two states: on, off. A light buib is one of the simpler electro-magnetic devices that we use. A computer is a more complex electro-mechanical device -- but it basically relies on the same two states: on, off.
To oversimplify, at a very basic level, an email is just one incredibly long sequence of 0's and 1's.
Computers, video players, CD players, are all fundamentally electro-magnetic devices. Electrical patterns (formatted as sequences of 0s and 1s) pass over the magnetic media (cassette tape, hard drive, or video tape). When this happens, the electical patterns create subtle alterations in the magnetic medium -- when you play a CD, or retrieve an email, you are 'replaying' a pattern that has been created by sequences of electrical pulses.
I honestly don't know the technical details of how computer forensics retrieves old, overwritten computer formats. However, I am glad that there are people who can retrieve digital data, and I hope that they work for "the good guys" who chase down pederasts, WH liars, and other despicable people.
If Rove and Llbby honestly believed that simply "deleting" an email from their desktop would erase it... then that news would be "too good to be true"! Nevertheless, given the incompetence of these people in dealing with hurricanes, Mid East politics, health care, and medical prescriptions... well.. I suppose it's possible that they're equally incompetent at deleting their email. Here's hoping!!!
Supposing that at least some CIA employees, as well as disgruntled DOD employees, would have a thorough working knowledge of US government server configurations, admin roles, and privileges for WH email systems... then those of us who believe in the RULE OF LAW (rather than power abusers) can only hope that these fine federal employees were keeping an eye on the WH server logs in the spring of 2003.
I don't work in DC, nor do I have any inside dope on any individuals involved in this unfolding set of events. However, if I worked for the FBI, or the DoJ, I would be incrediblly indignant and insulted to discover that anyone in the WH would be so stupid as to think they could delete email without anyone being able to figure it out.
...And if this were a novel or a screenplay, then I'd have some funky techie save the day by knowing how to secure and recover the deleted email files... but will life turn out to be stranger than fiction!? I can only hope!
I'm not a server admin, but I know enough computer basics to understand that deleting an email and expecting it to 'vanish' is about as dumb as supposing that your auto mechanic wouldn't be able to read your odometer. Your auto mechanic ought to wonder why in hell you hire him, and why you're so arrogant and stupid. Let's hope that the WH crew were equally arrogant, and that some indignant FBI, CIA, or DOD employees knew where to go find the good email logs.
I refuse to allow myself to get too excited about this possibility without more info out of Fitz... but given the fact that these WH trolls are such control freaks, it would be richly ironic if they were technically ignorant enough to leave a really good trail for the computer forensics folks.
It would certainly be poetic justice, but it's probably too much to hope for -- just too good to be true.
The fact that Libby -- or ANYONE -- at the WH would be *stupid* enough to delete emails in the first place makes me smack my forehead in disbelief. They'd be smarter to just stop by Kinko's for a banner that says, "g-u-i-l-t-y" and tie it to the WH portico.
If it turns out that Libby (or Rove, or any of them!) were STUPID enough to try and delete emails... Oh, I dare not allow myself to become excited. The very thought makes me giddy...
readeroftealeaves |
02.03.06 - 12:19 am | #
