home

Specter: WH Agrees To Outside Expert To Search For Missing E-Mails

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Law Related
Posted on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 01:53:53 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

I find this hard to believe but let's make this a baseline position:

[Senator Arlen] Specter [R-PA] said he and the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, had reached agreement on Friday with the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, on naming an outside expert to help search for the missing e-mails. “He thought it was a good idea,” Mr. Specter said on “This Week” on ABC. “He said they have nothing to hide.”

Great. An outside expert will likely recover the missing e-mails and find out how, when and who deleted those e-mails.

That will probably tell the why too. I bet the White House reneges on the deal.

< Sunday Open Thread | Alberto Gonzales Opening Statement Available >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Specter: WH Agrees To Outside Expert To Search For Missing E-Mails | 14 comments (14 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

    But the White House hasn't agreed (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by annefrank on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 02:22:39 PM EST
    that Dems can actually SEE the emails.
    Correct (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by pontificator on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 07:24:19 PM EST
    They still argue that that these emails are covered by executive privilege, even if they were sent using an RNC account.


    Parent
    They'll renege, or (5.00 / 4) (#4)
    by scribe on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 02:58:00 PM EST
    Specter's being so agreeable means either:
    (a) he's gotten the sign that "we've successfully completed burning the hard drives, so there's nothing to see here", or
    (b) he's opening a negotiation on "who is acceptable to both sides", something which can last forever.

    I have no doubt that the guy who let his aide slip the whole "acting US Attorney appointments" section (and probably other stuff) into the so-called PATRIOT Act reauthorization and then let him become US Attorney for Utah has absolutely no interest in even trying to resuscitate the power of the Senate.  Not after he wh*ored out his office (only one of the latest in a string of such acts) to keep his precious Judiciary chairmanship after the 2004 election and then wound up losing it anyway.

    That is not a bet I would cover! (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by Molly Bloom on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 04:12:16 PM EST


    Is Haliburton considered an outside expert? (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Molly Bloom on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 04:14:46 PM EST


    Parent
    I don't think the WH would agree... (5.00 / 2) (#8)
    by sphealey on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 04:38:38 PM EST
    I don't think the WH would agree to an outside forensic expert if they weren't already 99.95% certain that the lost e-mails were in fact  NOT recoverable.

    sPh

    We'll see.... (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by squeaky on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 06:04:01 PM EST
    I bet the White House reneges on the deal.

    Hard to imagine that tippity top secrecy will not be an issue. We are at war you know.

    This is just Specter trying to control things. (5.00 / 2) (#12)
    by clio on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 06:37:10 PM EST
    He can't seem to remember that he's not the chairman of Judiciary any longer.

    Making irrelevant deals and pronouncements makes him feel better and is harmless, really.  Let him distract himself.

    Outside expert (none / 0) (#2)
    by pixpixpix on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 02:41:07 PM EST
    I wonder if an outside expert, chose by the WH, will only be able to see selected emails, in a closed room, for a short period of time, and not be allowed to take any notes?

    or who picks the expert? Congress should have some good suggestions ready to go..

    At least (none / 0) (#3)
    by Maryb2004 on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 02:57:11 PM EST
    when they start fighting over who has standing to fight the subpoena to hand the retrieved e-mails over (RNC or WH) there would BE something to see.

    But, more realistically, by reaching this "compromise" it seems to me it's just part of the delaying tactic and putting off that real fight until later.  Rather than resolving the issue now and allowing the committee to start looking at e-mails as they are "found".  

    It helps to know how the network works (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 03:29:58 PM EST
    Destroying hard drives will not help the WH. Corrupting a forensic investigation or corrupting an investigator is probably the only hope the WH has now.

    I hope Leahy sticks to his guns and forces a completely impartial investigator.

    SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, The New York Times
    I work in the IT industry and I agree with the expert quoted in this article. Emails, or for that matter, any web traffic is sent across multiple routers. To help understand this, try this experiment:

    1. If you're running windows, go to the start menu, choose "Run". (If you're running OS X, launch the Terminal application within your Utilities folder and go to step #4

    2. When a window pops up, type "cmd" and click "ok"

    3. Windows users: type the following within the command prompt on Windows (without the quotes): "tracert www.yahoo.com"

    4. OS X users: type the following within the Terminal window (without the quotes): "traceroute www.yahoo.com

    5. Even if you see "****", this is a router that won't send it's information back to your computer, but it's still a router that is used to send information to and from Yahoo. These are all potential places where emails, or any other type of network information could be stored. Each router that is used in this process is called a hop, my windows machine recorded 13 hops between my computer and Yahoo. It's a bunch of BS when the White House says that these emails are gone....do not believe them!

    The picture below represents network traffic within the US. [picture here]
    sphealy (none / 0) (#9)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 05:54:15 PM EST
    Don't count on that either. They are not as smart as they think they are, especially when it comes to IT. They are just doing the stupidity backstep. Yet they could have our emails located in about 2 minutes, if they wanted them.

    Now, now (none / 0) (#10)
    by rdandrea on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 06:03:57 PM EST
    The White House has bought into this idea.  At least until they can find another Anna Nicole or Imus story behind which to bury it.  Let's give them 10 minutes (at least) until they try to pull some other kind of funny business.

    Who said we aren't willing to cooperate?

    It may be that the Bush administration has (none / 0) (#14)
    by JSN on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 07:25:05 PM EST
    bugged itself by intercepting phone and wireless communications.
    Is so that would be very interesting to see how that develops.

    Specter: WH Agrees To Outside Expert To Search For Missing E-Mails | 14 comments (14 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment