Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Missing White House Emails Match Plame Time Frames ... 12-hour gap and the four days it took the Justice Department to notify Gonzales about probe

Missing White House Emails Match Plame Time Frames | By Jason Leopold | t r u t h o u t | Report | Tuesday 22 January 2008

At 8 PM on September 29, 2003, former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales received a phone call from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Gonzales received formal notification that evening that the DOJ had launched a criminal investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.
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The 12-hour gap and the four days it took the Justice Department to notify Gonzales about the probe was seen as a departure from standard procedure, according to a letter sent to President Bush by Sens. Tom Daschle, Chuck Schumer, Carl Levin and Joseph Biden in October 2003.

"Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that the first step in such an investigation would be to ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet the Justice Department waited four days before making a formal request for documents," the letter says. "When the Justice Department finally asked the White House to order employees to preserve documents, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice." The implication was the White House might have destroyed evidence before receiving official notification to turn over documents.
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The dates where emails are missing for entire days in 2003 coincide with the former White House Press Secretary's public exoneration of Rove and Libby for their alleged roles in leaking Plame's identity, an interview Cheney gave to Tim Russert, host of "Meet the Press," where Cheney vehemently denied knowing Joe Wilson or any aspect of the leak of his wife's CIA status, despite the fact court filings show Cheney discussed the Wilsons with his staff numerous times in the preceding months. Moreover, the emails went missing a week or so before the FBI first questioned Rove, Libby and other White House officials about the leak. ...

Monday, January 21, 2008

[White House] raising the possibility that many electronic messages _ including those pertaining to the CIA leak case _ have been taped over

White House Recycles Backup E-Mail Tapes | PETE YOST | January 16, 2008 02:24 PM EST | AP

WASHINGTON — The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages _ including those pertaining to the CIA leak case _ have been taped over and are gone forever. ...

“further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law

9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes | By MARK MAZZETTI | Published: December 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the C.I.A. destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaeda operatives.

A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry. ...

Former CIA Analyst Says Evidence Abounds for Impeachment

Friday, December 21, 2007 by Foster's Daily Democrat (New Hampshire) | Former CIA Analyst Says Evidence Abounds for Impeachment | by Gretyl Macalaster

PORTSMOUTH - The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library Monday night.
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“Don’t let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence … they knew,” McGovern said. ...

Justice Department delayed prosecuting Republican official for jamming Democrats’ phones ... [so that Republican is not affected in election]

Wed, Dec. 19, 2007 | Justice Department delayed prosecuting Republican official for jamming Democrats’ phones | By GREG GORDON | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON | The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the Northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

The phone-jamming operation was aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from rounding up voters in the close U.S. Senate race between Rep. John Sununu, a Republican, and Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat.

Sununu’s 19,000-vote victory helped the GOP regain control of the Senate.

While there were guilty pleas in the New Hampshire investigation before the 2004 presidential election, involvement of the national GOP wasn’t confirmed.

A Manchester, N.H., policeman had quickly traced the jamming to Republican political operatives in 2003 and forwarded the evidence to the Justice Department for what ordinarily would be a straightforward case.

However, senior Justice Department officials slowed the inquiry, the official told McClatchy Newspapers. The official didn’t know whether top department officials ordered the delays or what motivated those decisions. ...

evidence emerged that the Bush did the unthinkable: used federal prosecutors ... help the Republican Party win elections

The Work Remaining | Published: December 26, 2007

It has been nearly a year since the United States attorneys scandal broke, and much has changed. Many people at the center of the scandal have fled Washington, and new laws and rules have been put in place making it harder to use prosecutors’ offices to win elections. Much, however, remains to be done, starting with a full investigation into the misconduct that may have occurred — something the American people have been denied.
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Over the course of the year, considerable evidence emerged that the Bush administration did what seemed unthinkable: it used federal prosecutors, who are supposed to be scrupulously nonpartisan, to help the Republican Party win elections. As many as nine United States attorneys were fired, apparently because they brought cases against powerful Republicans or refused to bring cases that would hurt Democrats.

When the scandal broke, important players either refused to testify before Congress — like Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel, and Karl Rove, the presidential adviser — or professed ignorance. Then these officials began to slink away. The list of people connected to the scandal who resigned their jobs includes Ms. Miers; Mr. Rove; Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison; and Mr. Gonzales himself. ...

going to force the White House to actually explain something about the situation and what they've done about the missing e-mails,"

White House told to provide e-mail info | Federal Magistrate Orders White House to Say Whether Missing E-Mail Is on Backup Tapes | PETE YOST | AP News | Jan 08, 2008 19:53 EST

A federal magistrate ordered the White House on Tuesday to reveal whether copies of possibly millions of missing e-mails are stored on computer backup tapes.
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Facciola's court order "is going to force the White House to actually explain something about the situation and what they've done about the missing e-mails," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive. ...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Greenspan `Mess' Risks U.S. Recession, Stiglitz Says (Update4) ...

Greenspan `Mess' Risks U.S. Recession, Stiglitz Says (Update4) | By Reed V. Landberg and Paul George

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, said the U.S. economy risks tumbling into recession because of the ``mess'' left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

``I'm very pessimistic,'' Stiglitz said in an interview in London today. ``Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages.''
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``The richest country in the world cannot live within its means,'' Stiglitz said. ``It's a real example of macro economic mismanagement. The working out of this global imbalance will cause global problems. The depth of the conviction on free markets in the United States is not very great. We have increased those subsidies, doubled them, under President Bush.'' ...

Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone ... Chamber of Commerce vows to punish anti-business candidates ... with more than $60M

Chamber of Commerce vows to punish anti-business candidates | AP | By Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | January 8, 2008

“We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed,” chamber President Tom Donohue said.

The group indicates it will spend in excess of the approximately $60 million it put out in the last presidential cycle.

WASHINGTON -- Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business.

"We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," chamber President Tom Donohue said. ...
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Presidential candidates in particular have responded to the public concern. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been the bluntest populist voice, but other front-running Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have also called for change on behalf of middle-class voters.

On the Republican side, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- emerging as an unexpected front-runner after winning the Iowa caucuses -- has used populist themes in his effort to woo independent voters, blasting bonus pay for corporate chief executives and the effect of unfettered globalization on workers. ...