Missing Emails the 18 Minute Gap?
Missing Emails the 18 Minute Gap?
April 16, 2007: The case of the missing emails at the White House has spawned international conspiracy theories and comparisons to the Watergate Scandal.
With a mountain of ‘citizen journalism’ expressing a variety of different viewpoints on the issue, some have moved to compare the missing White House emails to the Watergate tapes. A US Senator has even gone so far as to raise the Nixon comparison on the Senate floor.
“Like the famous 18 minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears that key documentation has been erased or misplaced,” said Senator Patrick Leahy. “This sounds like the Administration’s version of ‘the dog ate my homework.”
The Republicans claim emails sent via Republican Party email accounts were lost due to honest ‘mistakes.’ But the opposing Democrats are not accepting the excuse that White House staff were not adequately briefed on recordkeeping requirements.
The White House’s ‘mistake’ was only discovered after Congress embarked on exploring the dismissal of eight US attorneys. The Democrats now want the emails found and claim with the emails running through a number of different servers, even a teenager could have the technical know-how to recover the missing information.
While it was originally the information in the email of importance to Congress, the original issue has now been sidelined as questions are raised over White House email accounts and the preservation of official records.
The emails in question are messages sent from administration officials including deputy White House chief of staff, Karl Rove. With accounts sponsored by the Republican National Committee (RNC) the RNC was effectively creating non-government email accounts using a number of different domain names. According to a variety of US based publications, this was done to avoid the ‘Hatch Act,’ a 70 year old law forbidding federal employees to use government resources and time to engage in political activities.
Overall, the New York Times reports that 21 White House officials have led ‘dual electronic lives’ by maintaining separate email accounts for government and campaigning work.
American law states official White House business, emails included, must be preserved. However until August 2004, it was general RNC practice to automatically delete messages after 30 days. The RNC concedes that even after the end of this policy, some individuals continued to manually delete email.
The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires the Government to ensure decisions, deliberations and actions are ‘adequately documented.’
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department is currently investigating connections between the White House and a ‘disgraced lobbyist,’ in a probe also expected to be affected by the missing emails.