Waxman To RNC: Turn Over Your Emails

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/04/waxman-rnc-emails/

Waxman To RNC: Turn Over Your Emails


Earlier this month, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee made public a secret PowerPoint presentation created by Karl Rove’s office with polling data and other information about the 2006/2008 elections.

Last January, that presentation was presented to dozens of political appointees at the General Services Administration by Rove deputy Scott Jennings. When Jennings concluded his presentation, GSA chief Lurita Doan “allegedly asked them how they could ‘help “our candidates” in the next elections.’”

Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued a letter today to the Republican National Committee to turn over all email communications by White House officials relating to the presentation.

In communicating with GSA about the presentation, Mr. Jennings and his assistant used “gwb43.com” e-mail accounts maintained by the RNC rather than their official White House e-mail accounts. In their e-mails, they described the presentation as a “close hold” and said that “we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”

To assist the Committee in its investigation of these issues, I request that you provide any electronic messages sent or received by Karl Rove, J. Scott Jennings, or any other White House officials using accounts maintained by the RNC that relate to (1) the January 26, 2007, PowerPoint presentation at GSA, (2) the presentation of any similar political briefings at other federal agencies or to other federal employees, or (3) the use of federal agencies or resources to help Republican candidates.

Waxman notes that the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has “issued a report finding that the presentation itself and Ms. Doan’s comments could be violations of the federal Hatch Act,” which prohibits using government resources for partisan activities.

Read the full letter:

Mike Duncan
Chairman
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Mr. Duncan:

I am writing to request e-mail communications stored on Republican National Committee servers that relate to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes.

Last week, the Committee held a hearing into allegations of misconduct at the General Services Administration. One of the issues examined at the hearing involved a partisan political presentation that White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs, J. Scott Jennings, made to the GSA Administrator, Lurita A. Doan, and approximately 40 GSA appointees in the GSA headquarters building on January 26, 2007. At this event, Mr. Jennings presented a 28-page PowerPoint briefing that reviewed the 2006 election results and identified the Republican party’s top electoral targets in upcoming federal and state elections. Following the presentation, Ms. Doan asked her staff to consider how GSA resources could be used to help “our candidates” in the next election.

Serious questions were raised at the hearing about the legality and propriety of Mr. Jennings’s presentation and the discussion that followed it. In addition, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a report finding that the presentation itself and Ms. Doan’s comments could be violations of the federal Hatch Act.<1> According to a White House spokesperson, however: “This is regular communication from the White House to political appointees throughout the administration.”<2>

In communicating with GSA about the presentation, Mr. Jennings and his assistant used “gwb43.com” e-mail accounts maintained by the RNC rather than their official White House e-mail accounts. In their e-mails, they described the presentation as a “close hold” and said that “we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”<3>

To assist the Committee in its investigation of these issues, I request that you provide any electronic messages sent or received by Karl Rove, J. Scott Jennings, or any other White House officials using accounts maintained by the RNC that relate to (1) the January 26, 2007, PowerPoint presentation at GSA, (2) the presentation of any similar political briefings at other federal agencies or to other federal employees, or (3) the use of federal agencies or resources to help Republican candidates.

The Committee requests that you produce these documents on or before April 18, 2007.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information about how to respond to the Committee’s request.

If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact David Rapallo or Anna Laitin with the Committee staff at [phone].

Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

[Benhurst]

1. ...

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Recommended #1

[blm]

2. Henry Waxman - American patriot and hero of anti-corruption, open government Democrats

Thankyou sir.

[PurpleChez]

10. I second that emotion.

[tblue]

17. He's got a bigger set than * ever did

[Nimrod2005]

3. Justice is on the way.........nt

[Fresh_Start]

4. Thank you, Waxman

BTW, are you going to ask if they have any similar emails on the US Attorney appointments or firings?

[Kber]

5. Aren't they supposed to be on vacation?

Or does Bush just wish they were on vacation?

[babylonsister]

6. He's a multi-tasker; I thought he was with Pelosi in Israel.

:shrug:

[corkhead]

7. Hate to be a wet blanket, but I see this going to the SCOTUS before pukes let anybody look at their

strategery

[Gregorian]

9. Can the SCOTUS intervene?

Subpoena from Congress? I thought that was a final demand. Equal powers. How would the supreme jokers get involved?

I don't know. I'm just asking.

[gratuitous]

11. This is the RNC, not the White House

And a private corporation doesn't have a claim to executive privilege, since it's not an official, constitutionally mandated branch of the government. They'd like to think they are, I have no doubt. And this is the double bind that the White House has put itself in, by trying to get around the law by using private e-mail servers and accounts for official government business. Either the White House, with the connivance of the RNC, broke the law by using the RNC to conduct official business, or the electronic traffic on the RNC servers is subject to congressional subpoena, just like any other private records are vulnerable to discovery in the course of an investigation.

Oopsie! Looks like the Republicans outsmarted themselves.

[kirby]

43. Hoisted on their own petard

Since they are using gwb43.com which is a 'non-official' server, bypassing the Presidential Records Act and the White House archivist, I can't possibly see how they can claim executive privilege. That
privilege surely only applies to internal WH communications between the President and his advisors.

I really hope Waxman can investigate this violation of the law... Its very significant, IMO.

[meldroc]

12. Maybe, but Waxman's going to win.

By law, the Bush Administration's supposed to conduct official business (discussing firing U.S. Attorneys is official business) on government servers - whitehouse.gov servers, and not on private, non-governmental systems, such as RNC's gwb43.com. There are several reasons for this. One of them is archival - whitehouse.gov emails automatically get put into official archives, and bypassing this is illegal. Also, whitehouse.gov emails get legal protection. If Bush & co. used government email instead of being cute by using gwb43.com, they would be able to assert confidentiality defenses when the emails get subpoenaed. They would have been able to have at least some of the subpoenas quashed using Executive Privilege. But since they didn't use government servers, they lost that protection. They CANNOT use Executive Privilege to quash a subpoena for gwb43.com emails, since they're not official White House emails.

In other words, Bush and co. are screwed. They have no legal basis to quash a Congressional subpoena of gwb43.com emails. They will either comply with the subpoenas, give Waxman and Leahy enough iron-clad incriminating evidence for impeachment, or they fight, lose, and risk being found in contempt of Congress. If they try deleting those emails or wiping or "losing" the servers, they'll get in BIG trouble, as the instant anyone thinks someone might want to use those emails as evidence, the lawyers are legally responsible for preserving that evidence.

That's check and mate!

[WiseButAngrySara]

23. The implications of this are awesome! Checkmate indeed! ...n/

[calimary]

33. Bee. You. Tee. Full!!!

:toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast:

Thanks for that analysis! Some awfully sharp people here. Good (and MOST encouraging and gratifying) stuff that I did not know before. Whoever said "the devil's in the details" certainly could have been talking about this bunch.

GAWD, but I LOVE Henry Waxman! He utterly ROCKS! Just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful representative! I wish all us Good Guys had such a great Congresscritter.

[paparush]

18. SCOTUS already poked Bush** in the eye once this week....

[mikelgb]

8. should be broader

[pinto]

13. Way to go Rep. Waxman. The White House has worked to politicize

departments across the federal bureaucracy into a campaign arm of the RNC. Good to see this get chipped at and Waxman is the right person in the right place to help make it happen.

[diane in sf]

14. this is so excellent!

[paparush]

15. As the other DU thread states: Democracy is breaking out all over!!

[grannylib]

16. Even HERE??? In AMERICA????? SWEEEEEET!!!!!!!

[juno jones]

19. All your e-mail are belong to us....n/t

[neuvocat]

20. My question is this:

what if the RNC says "NO! YOU CAN'T MAKE US SO NYEH-NYEH-NYEH!!!" ?

[meldroc]

21. Obstruction of justice, contempt of Congress...

Even if the DOJ balks because its full of Bushies, Congress can always send Fitzgerald or another special prosecutor after them.

Subpoenas are not optional. Especially since gbw43.com is not protected by Executive Privilege.

[FatDave]

28. But what if they say...

"we don't keep backups"?

[disndat]

30. Could emails be erased?

Or destroyed in some way?

[meldroc]

31. You could delete them from the server, but...

Let me clarify how much I know about computers. I am a software engineer. I do this for a living. I used to work for a major hard disk manufacturer, and I've also worked for a major computer manufacturer on two occasions, working with high end servers and mainframes. I know a lot of the technicalities about what happens when you delete stuff.

Traces would remain. To start with, deleting a file such as an email usually consists of removing the directory entry in the file system pointing to the file and marking the disk sectors where the file resides as free. The contents are still there, and frequently can be recovered by undelete utilities. If we're talking about a database or a mail server file, removing an email there will also leave traces behind.

Let's say you go all the way - format the disk. That will still leave data behind that can be recovered with forensics tools. Go a step further and wipe the entire hard disk. Now you're getting somewhere - you overwrite the entire hard disk. But... For one, it's now obvious to everyone with enough neurons to form a synapse what you've just done. What do you think Waxman and the rest of Congress are going to do if they hand you a subpoena and you hand them a hard disk containing nothing but random data. If you do that, you're going to jail. Also, that server's not the only place where those emails are stored. You have routers on the Internet where those emails passed through - those may have logs showing that those emails existed. You have the copies of emails saved on individual people's workstations. There may be hundreds of workstations out there with copies of some of the emails. In the DOJ document dumps we've already seen are references to some of the emails on gwb43.com - when those servers are subpoenaed, they'd better produce those emails if they know what's good for them. And those emails may reference other emails - better produce those too. Then there are backup tapes. If we're talking about a halfway competent ISP here, there will be an entire system in place for doing backups. In a typical environment, you'll have seven tapes, one for each day of the week, used for differential backups (where you only back up stuff that's changed or added since the previous day's backups.) You'll have four tapes containing full backups of everything, one backup done each Sunday, so those four tapes will keep the state of the systems for the entire previous month. Then you'll have a permanent backup for each month that goes into storage. In short, not only can you bring back the data on the email server as it was today, you can see what was on the machine yesterday, or last week, or six months ago, or three years ago. On top of that, you'll have off-site backups - you'll make a backup onto a tape once a month, and that tape's stored elsewhere, like in a safety deposit box, just in case the building burns down. Depending on how badly the ISP wants to be able to put itself back together quickly in case of a disaster, there may be a couple dozen backup tapes containing those emails. On top of that, we won't be talking about one server. There may be two, or even more servers, operating in parallel to ensure that email service is up and running at all times. And those servers won't have just one hard disk. They'll be running a RAID array with a whole bunch of hard disks (anything from four to dozens, depending on the scale), designed with redundancy in mind so if a hard disk, or even several hard disks fail, the data will still be there.

In short, if Waxman subpoenas the entire contents of gwb43.com's email system, saying "Oops, we lost a few messages." is NOT going to fly. Nobody who knows how these things work will believe that the email equivalent of Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap can be produced unintentionally. Those emails are in that system, and if the RNC is following the law, they'll be able to produce them in a matter of minutes. If they say they can't they are LYING.

[calimary]

35. Oh LORD! If only I could nominate a "post of the week"! I'm not computer-

savvy. Far from it. In fact, I'm about as far from being computer-savvy as it's possible to be. But even I could understand most of that. It kinda sounds like there isn't much wiggle-room here, doesn't it?

Thanks for posting this explanation! How cool that we can all benefit from your knowledge and experience!

:toast:

I'm adding the address to this so I can put it in my journal. I wanna make sure I can find this again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3197353

[tbyg52]

40. Oh WOW!

Thank you for the information/good news!

:bounce:

[disndat]

42. Thank you Meldroc!

for your unbelievable scholarship and dedication.

[hwmnbn]

44. Now does everybody see why......

I love techies!!

Thanks for clueing in us clueless folks. I can't tell you how encouraged your post made me feel.

[disndat]

45. Yes, I forgot to add,

I will be able to sleep better tonight, knowing that we have a good chance to nab the real "evil doers"!

[FatDave]

47. Yes, however...

I think odds are that you're absolutely right, but I just want to point out a few ways that, were the parties involved determined to maintain secrecy, the systems you mention could be circumvented.

You're dead-on about deletion not always being permanent. Last I heard data recovery specialists could get at data that had been overwritten as many as 7 times. That was a few years ago, so maybe they've even improved on that technology since then.

However, there are tools out there, many of them free, which can securely erase data by overwriting it multiple times with data specifically generated to undo the magnetic remnants of the previos data. Now your average computer user out there isn't likely to know about such programs (because they're not likely to know about the need for them) but we're dealing with some guys here who are seriously into secrecy. That being said, they're also pretty stupid. If they really wanted to keep those communications private, they should have encrypted them.

As far as ISP backups go, the contents of the emails being in them depend on the emails sitting on the server when the backups take place. That may not always be the case. For example, the way I handle my mail is that I have a mail client (Mozilla Thunderbird) on my PC set to go grab my mail off of a POP server every 5 minutes, at which point it's deleted from the server. And I pretty much always have thunderbird running. So basically, unless I'm going to be away for a couple days (the only time my PC gets shut down for an extended period) none of my email sits on a computer outside of my direct control for longer than 5 minutes. If backups at my ISP are done in the middle of the night, as they typically are, they may catch one or two emails in their backups on a good night.

Of course again, not everybody does this, and it doesn't apply to mail in an MS Exchange based system. Exchange servers keep all mail stored remotely (unless you jump through some hoops setting Outlook to archive your mail). Given that their hosting provider's home page (smartechcorp.net) is served by MS IIS they're obviously MS-friendly, so it's possible that they're using exchange for their email, although most ISP's and hosting company's use POP3 because it's free and standardized. Also, a lot of people use web-based email, and unless they are diligent in specifically deleting their emails, those will always end up in the backups. And even if they do use a mail client to pull all the mail from the server, the emails still likely exist on the user's personal machine. Of course it would be a lot harder to get ahold of 5 or 6 executive privileged PC's than one server from an ISP.

Another thing with going to the backups is that it depends on the ISP/hosting company hyaving good backup procedures. Typically they do, but some your bargain basement places charge an additional fee for the option of having backups done. Another consideration is whether the RNC actually pays for these mail servers or if they're donated by a sympathetic company. Given the number of republican-oriented sites smartech has been found to be hosting, I'd lean towards the latter. And if that's the case, and given that these accounts were specifically set up to be clandestine, isn't it possible that they were specifically told not to take backups? Maybe even to keep these servers in a state that can be pulled at a moment's notice?

I'm not entirely sure that router logs could tell us much about emails passing through them. I'm not a networking expert or anything, but it's my understanding that by the time data's passing through routers, it's been busted up into packets. Multiple packets from the same email message aren't even guaranteed to take the same route to their destination, so those would have to be reassembled, and while it would be possible to do, I'd hate to be the guy who had to do it. Of course once they'd been split up and routed, lord knows how many completely unrelated ISP's records you'd have to subpoena. But even beyond all that, even given the effort it would take to track down and reassemble all those packets, do routers even keep logs of everything that passes through them? Maybe they do, but it sure seems impractical to me. For a high-traffic router to keep a record of every packet that passes through it is to say that it keeps a backup of all data that passes through it. So can you imagine the storage capacity a backbone provider like Level 3 or Qwest would need to keep a record of every packet from every email, every instant message, every dirty picture, every illegal mp3, every youtube video, and every linux distribution (among other things) transfered through their routers? Like I said, I may be dead wrong, but that seems impractical.

Another question I have is does the oversight comittee have anyone who understands all the networking issues enough to know what is and isn't possible? Do they know that deleted doesn't always mean deleted? Should we volunteer to help them?

But my biggest concern in all of this is simply the amount of time they've had by now to cover their tracks. We've known about gwb43.com for what, over a month now? Chances are they started scrubbing as soon as they were discovered. Would it be obvious that they were lying and covering up the facts? Of course. But when has that ever stopped them before?

But then again, these people are really dumb, and they've never shown a predisposition to thinking ahead in the past, so I think we'll probably get everything we need.

[meldroc]

48. I got a post from a fellow member of Ars Technica's forums describing their email systems.

He mentioned that because his ISP does get served with warrants calling for the emails of suspects every few months or so, and because their policies require them to keep all emails that go through their system, on his ISP, every single email, every one, is automatically BCC'ed (that's blind-carbon-copied) to an archive server. It's quite cheap and easy, happens in real time, and is invisible to the users. If the user deletes an email, the archive server still retains it. It takes about 1-2 gigs a day for his ISP, so an entire year's worth of email will fit on just a few hard disks or the equivalent in backup tapes. He's been able to pull a person's entire collection of emails going back five years for law enforcement.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be one of the sysadmins working for Coptix (I think that's the ISP that hosts gwb43.com) - they very well may be getting asked to do things that are very, very illegal. And there's no way for them to do it without covering all their tracks - many of those emails have been quoted or referenced in those DOJ document dumps, and they'd better not delete any of those or they risk going to prison for destruction of evidence. They've already been served with official notice from Waxman that they need to retain all those emails for Congressional action, so they're legally required to preserve those emails at all costs.

So really, there's no plausible excuse that these sysadmins could use to conveniently "lose" emails. If I were Waxman, I wouldn't just subpoena the emails, but I would hire some computer forensics experts and subpoena entire hard disks and backup tapes.

Oh, as far as data recovery from wiped hard drives (not merely formatted, but wiped with a tool such as DBAN (Darik's Boot & Nuke)), that is pretty close to impossible. As I mentioned, I used to work for a hard disk manufacturer. To even try, you have to take the hard disk to a data recovery service, which will put the hard drive into a clean room, disassemble it, and scan the platters with a scanning, tunnelling microscope. This is an insanely expensive, labor-intensive process, which requires the skills of experienced engineers. The end result is filled with errors, and isn't guaranteed to produce much of anything. But like I said, if you use a tool like DBAN, it will be completely obvious what you've done, and if you did that on a hard disk full of subpoenaed information, you're going to prison.

It's still theoretically possible to recover data from a wiped hard disk - the best bet is to look in the hard disk's spare sectors. All hard disks have defects on the platters. The hard disk's microcontroller automatically maps all those defects and relocates any data on defective parts of the disk to spare sectors, using error-correction algorithms to recover damaged data. The end user doesn't even know this is happening. But a hard disk with special firmware loaded on it by a data-recovery company could peek at those damaged sectors, which can probably be recovered with error correction, and won't be wiped by anything including DBAN. This is why places that deal with classified information always destroy hard disks - smashing them to pieces and incinerating them.

[FatDave]

49. You obviously know your stuff

I never knew ISP's were archiving all email, but it doesn't surprise me, and I believe it's completely doable storage-wise considering that emails are just plain text for the most part. But is it actually illegal for an ISP to not keep those archives?

For example, suppose Coptix or whoever isn't technically hosting the RNC servers, but is co-locating them, wherein the servers are owned and managed by the RNC and they just rent rack space and connectivity from the ISP. In that case, the RNC could have complete control over the server, the sendmail config, and all other software. In that case there would be no automatic BCCing (and certainly no nightly backups unless specifically contracted with the ISP). Unless of course the ISP captures all email packets at the gateway, reassembles them and then archives them, which wouldn't surprise me at all either. Probably not too tough to sniff out anything headed for port 21 on a single gateway.

I don't want you to think I'm just trying to argue with you here, because like I said, I'm 90% sure you're absolutely right. And barring some serious ISP collusion, Waxman will get what he's looking for. I'm just trying to determine ways that, at their most devious, they could justify the emails' nonexistence. I've seen these slippery sh*ts slither out of a lot in the past. I'd put nothing past them and wouldn't be at all surprised to see a loyal ISP take the fall.

I guess despite all the encouraging signs of late I'm still just a little pessimistic that we'll ever pin anything on these bastards. And to think they called Reagan "the teflon president".

[meldroc]

50. Hmmm. You do have a lot of good points.

So far in the U.S., there aren't any laws requiring ISPs to archive email. I mentioned that this Arsian worked for an ISP that had an internal policy requiring all email be archived.

Where you do start breaking the law is when you receive legal notice (as Waxman sent to the RNC) that emails on your system may be used as evidence in Congressional hearings or a court case. Once you receive such notice, or even if you figure out for yourself that emails on your system may be used in court or Congressional hearings, you by law have an affirmative duty to preserve those emails, so if you do get subpoenaed, you can immediately produce those emails. If you don't you're looking at contempt, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence charges.

Oh, here's another thought. How is the RNC organized? Public corporation, privately owned? If it's a publicly owned corporation, Sarbanes-Oxley may apply. It requires companies to retain various records and communications, including certain emails, for five years, and the company's IT personnel are legally responsible for making that happen. That may obligate them to come up with a system for retaining emails.

It is certainly possible that the ISP may be full of Bushies that take the fall. It boggles my mind that people choose to do this. Libby perjured himself, got a felony rap, and will probably see prison if Bush doesn't give him a pardon. People like G. Gordon Liddy did go to prison for Nixon. Over and over, people will fall on their swords for sons-of-bitches like Bush, Cheney and Rove. I wouldn't do that for anyone. I have no idea why people are willing to ruin their own lives committing felonies, or even deliberately getting caught committing felonies for these bastards.

[Captain Angry]

22. Considering that the RIAA can take whole servers

And they're not the law...

I have a feeling that a search and seizure warrant could be applied to the RNC's whole operation. All PCs, servers, remote servers, backup systems, tapes, network logs, everything.

Now, if the DOJ or FBI failed to serve said warrant, that would basically be a sure sign that our government was taken in a bloodless coup.

But that's just my opinion. :-)

[meldroc]

32. If the DOJ or FBI fail to do their duty, that's what special prosecutors are for.

Congress can appoint anyone they want as a special prosecutor - the special prosecutor laws were put in place specifically if there was a conflict of interest in the DOJ that kept them from doing their jobs.

If the DOJ doesn't enforce a subpoena, then Patrick Fitzgerald or another special prosecutor will.

[calimary]

36. And Welcome to DU, Captain Angry!

:hi:

[WiseButAngrySara]

24. Kick for Waxman and justice the old fashioned way! ....n/t

[Demeter]

25. It's All Over But the Screaming (Grab Your Ear Protection!)

and about time, too!

[Lena inRI]

26. Sic 'em Rep. Waxman. . .

Senator Leahy and YOU are leading the pack. . .go get 'em, dear Congressmen, RELENTLESSLY!





:kick: :loveya: :kick: :loveya: :kick:

[annabanana]

27. Love the pic! You KNOW there's a cat up THAT tree!!

If Waxman's barking, the cats are fleeing!

[19jet54]

29. Hell hounds on your trail boy...

... :evilgrin: :kick:

[pigpickle]

34. kick

[calimary]

37. Welcome to DU!

Cheers!

[Kurovski]

38. K&R. (nt)

[Diane R]

39. Question: Would Fitzgerald be able to obtain new evidence from gwb43.com? n/t

[AllegroRondo]

41. No "Executive Privelege" there!

sorry, if the WH wants to discuss things over a non-government email system, executive privelege no longer applies.

Further - any topic they may have discussed in those emails no longer has executive privelege, no matter what email system additional conversations may have taken place on.

[Bravo Zulu]

46. Waste, fraud, and abuse?

I told the guys at the reserve center when that idiot (bu$h)
was running for President that they were going to be sorry,
but they didn’t listen and now we’re going to hell in a hand
basket, John Turly just told K O that the Clinton
Administration turned over information to Congress so he
thinks that the pukes will not be able not to give Rep. Waxman
the emails about their criminal activities! By the way, I
think today is the day that the emails are supposed to be
turned over to the investigators!