CREW Is On The Job

Go to the CREW site to read the full version of the report.

CREW RELEASES "CROSSING THE LINE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S EFFORTS TO EXPAND ITS POWERFUL REACH"
Contact:
Naomi Seligman Steiner 202.408.5565 nseligman@citizensforethics.org

2 Jul 2007 // Washington, DC – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report entitled Crossing the Line: The Bush Administration's Efforts to Expand Its Powerful Reach, which details the Bush administration’s repeated constitutional overreaching and abuse of executive power and prerogative.

Crossing the Line demonstrates that Vice President Dick Cheney is quietly, but diligently, working to establish case law that equates the power of the vice presidency with the power of the presidency; and that the Bush administration is intent on expanding the power of executive privilege well beyond constitutional bounds


Recently it was revealed that the vice president has unilaterally exempted himself and his office from the executive order that governs the safeguarding of classified national security information.
In response to a suit filed by Valerie and Joseph Wilson against Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials, Mr. Cheney argued that as vice president he is entitled to absolute immunity from suit.
In response to a CREW suit over visitor logs, the administration is attempting to reclassify Secret Service documents as presidential documents under the exclusive control of the White House. The vice president has argued that the constitutional protections afforded the presidency apply with equal force to his office.
In a suit filed by CREW over a FOIA request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Hurricane Katrina-related documents, the government invoked the presidential communications privilege, suggesting an attempt to cover-up what President Bush actually knew before, during and after the hurricane devastated the Gulf Coast.
During the course of CREW’s FOIA lawsuit against the White House Office of Administration (OA) for documents relating to five million missing White House emails, the OA claimed that it was responding “as a matter of administrative discretion,” not because the OA is an “agency” bound by the FOIA.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, “Vice President Cheney and Bush administration officials are working hard to reconfigure the executive branch to conform with their preference for absolute power rather than with clearly established constitutional boundaries. CREW’s report depicts an administration out of control.”

Hopefully, this will be picked up by the MSM and widely distributed. In the interim, we should spread the word as best we can.

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Illegally doing lots of government business over political party email servers

some fairly mind-boggling additional information from waxman's house oversight committee...

first of all, the practice was widespread...

In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.

secondly, the volume of useage was much heavier than was initially thought...

The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.

third, deletion and destruction was undertaken on a wholesale basis...

Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.

and, in direct contravention of the presidential records act, it appears that gonzo knew of the destruction and did not act to enforce the law...

In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.

not only does it appear that the presidential records act was violated, there was complete disregard for internal white house policy set forth in 2001 that was put in place specifically to insure compliance with the act...

To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

why are these people still in office...? why haven't we stormed the white house with rakes and hoes, buckets of tar and sacks of feathers, and run the entire lot of them out of town on a rail...?

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Restoring public confidence in the White House - HAHAHAHAHA...!

a "good idea" to cooperate with the senate judiciary committee...? uhhhh, no shit, sherlock...

The White House said Saturday it is agreeing to the Senate Judiciary Committee's request for how to choose someone to help recover some lost e-mails involving official presidential business.

[...]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Saturday that Fielding called Leahy and Specter to say that allowing the committee input into picking an independent consultant is a good idea.

kind of like gravity... it's not only a good idea, it's THE LAW...! they're skating as fast as they can to avoid criminal charges, there's no doubt about it...

On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the committee's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding to request that "we jointly agree on a fair and objective process for investigating this matter, including the use of a mutually trusted computer forensic expert."

"Such a process would help to restore the public's confidence in the White House's desire to comply with the Presidential Records Act," the senators said.

restoring "the public's confidence" in ANYTHING the white house has done, is doing or will do is a lost cause... moreover, anyone who still has any confidence in THIS white house is clearly not hitting on all cylinders... the very best the white house can do now, and i'm not sure even that is possible, is to figure out a way to make it to the finish line on 20 january 2009...

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Students attempt citizens arrest of Rove

NOW,things are getting interesting...

Heckling protesters briefly delayed the car carrying top White House aide Karl Rove last night as he left the American University campus, where he had just given a speech. No arrests or injuries were reported after Rove's invitation-only talk.

About 20 students lay in front of the car as it prepared to leave, a witness said.

Josh Goodman, an AU junior, said other students kicked the car "and tried to stop it as best as they could."

[...]

Goodman said students went to the Ward Circle building where Rove spoke to make a "citizen's arrest" of the presidential adviser. He said the students claimed they had compiled evidence indicating that Rove had violated what they say is a presidential records act stipulating that all presidential e-mail be recorded on White House servers.

what i find most interesting about this is what they were wanting to make a citizens arrest FOR...

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