Bad Deeds for 1-22-2008

White House Threw Out Clinton E-Mail Archiving System; No Reason Given – In 1994, after a federal court ruled that the White House must preserve e-mails under the Federal Records Act, the Clinton Administration instituted a custom archiving system known as the Automated Records Management System (ARMS). The Clinton Administration also ended writing over, or “recycling,” backup tapes in 1998 and 1999. Although there had been some “human interaction” errors with ARMS, by the end Clinton’s presidency, White House officials said the problems with ARMS had been solved. But shortly after Bush took office, his administration began taking steps to phase out the system. White House technology officials proposed two different records-management systems as ARMS replacements in 2003 and 2004, but neither was adopted, according to administration documents submitted in court filings. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel would not comment on why ARMS was eliminated. The system was never replaced, according to court records and officials.

White House E-mails Missing on Key Days in Court Battle Over Cheney’s Energy Task Force – A new report released this weekend shows some dates on which staff members in the vice president’s office allegedly destroyed internal communications correlate with court decisions regarding the task force. Historical archives of White House e-mails are missing for at least 473 days of Bush’s presidency. A report compiled this weekend by a group suing the administration shows Cheney’s underlings apparently deleted their e-mails on days that the courts contradicted their quests to keep internal proceedings private.

Email Also Missing From Cheney’s Office on the Day the White House Was Told to Preserve Documents in Valerie Plame Wilson CIA Leak – Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney’s office is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. That morning, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered the president and the vice president’s staff to “preserve all materials that might be relevant” to an inchoate Justice Department probe. A new report released this weekend shows some dates on which staff members in the vice president’s office allegedly destroyed internal communications correlate with court decisions regarding the energy task force.

CREW ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL NEWS AT THE TIME THE WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL WENT MISSING

Regards,

Jim