There is a very, very simple solution to this. Congress should issue subpoenas, and they should do so immediately. The use of outside email system was a direct violation of one of several laws, and as such, the emails cannot, should not, and will not be covered be executive privilege.
In addition to helping us learn the truth about the firing of the us attorneys, such a move would have an added side benefit: it would set a precedent that would virtually guarantee no future administration would ever use outside email addresses to avoid the requirements of the Presidential Records Act again.
WASHINGTON - President Bush's lawyers told the Republican National Committee on Tuesday not to turn over to Congress any e-mails related to the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys before showing them to the White House.Democrats and Republican critics of the administration said the move suggests that the White House is seeking to develop a strategy to block the release of the non-government e-mails to congressional investigators by arguing that they're covered by executive privilege and not subject to review.
Scott M. Stanzel, deputy White House press secretary, called the action "reasonable" and said that any review of the e-mails would "be conducted in a timely fashion, to balance the committee's need for the information with the extreme over breadth of their requests." Party officials declined comment, but a GOP aide familiar with the negotiations said the RNC would comply with the White House request....
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., who'd asked the RNC to turn over any applicable e-mails by week's end, characterized the White House's stance as an "extreme and unnecessary" effort to block or slow the release of the e-mails.
Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration Justice Department official who's been critical of the administration and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said the existence of the RNC e-mails is worrisome for the White House.
"The situation is very awkward for the administration because they don't know exactly what e-mails are there. What does seem very clear is that the e-mails did concern government business, which would include firing U.S. attorneys. Otherwise there would be no plausible claim," he said.
Fein said the administration might be considering seeking an injunction to prevent the Republican Party from releasing the e-mails to Congress.
Citing the leaking of the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers as an example, Fein said, "It's always more difficult to claim privilege after it's leaked out of your hands - or if it's never in your hands in the first place."
At the same time, Fein said, the White House is putting the Republican Party in a bind. "If you're the RNC, you're making yourself vulnerable to a claim you're impeding or endeavoring to impede a congressional investigation," he said.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., general chairman of the Republican Party, said he wasn't involved in those discussions and referred legal questions to the RNC. "I'm sure they're going to try to do the right thing, but what that is I don't know. I'm sure they're burning the midnight oil with lawyers over there figuring it out."
The letter from special counsel Emmet T. Flood to the RNC's lawyer, Robert Kelner, said the White House must have an opportunity to review the documents to learn whether they must be preserved as part of the Presidential Records Act, but also to determine "whether the executive branch may need to take measures necessary to protect its other legal interests."
You've got to love how after 6 years of openly violating the Presidential Records Act, they are now hiding behind it to protect themselves. Brilliant.
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