Web Detectives

These people are problem-solvers! I hope Conyers accepts WO's volunteer offer, but you don't think WO would fix facts around the preferred outcome, do you? I don't. WO reminds me of Mike Ruppert. Ed.
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The Bushies are going to fight the subpoena; they have to. There's no way in hell they can let those documents and emails see the light of day. Anyone who's been paying attention knows that the Bushies are done, deader than doornails, if they obey the subpeona(s).

So what will they do? Seems to me the WH only has two options:

1. Just ignore the subpoenas, which would mean finding the WH/DoJ in contempt. Does Congress go to the court then? Or send the Sargeant-at-Arms to enforce the subpeonas?

2. Comply in dribs and drabs. This seems a likelier scenario, since it avoids a legal showdown. Unless the Committees call them on it - but can they? They'd be working with an obvious but unprovable assertion that the response is dilatory. Can they issue a contempt order for foot-dragging?

Assuming either one, where does that leave Gonzales' appointment to testify on the 17th?

If the WH delays or ignores the supbpoenas, would Congress reschedule his testimony for after the showdown over the subpeonas? Or would the hearing go forward, and the subpoena fight continue at the same time?

Posted by: CaseyL | April 10, 2007 at 19:17
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Gonzales still testifies. Even if he resigns first, he still testifies. If he doesn't show, subpoena his ass.

I don't think he's going to show.

Posted by: tekel | April 10, 2007 at 20:05
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CaseyL--I don't see how they're going to fight this. If they miss the deadline, I think Conyers is just going to send the Sergeant-at-Arms over there to confiscate the computers. This has "last chance" written all over it.

Posted by: Frank Probst | April 10, 2007 at 20:07
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I'll agree with Casey, because there's so much there to hide. Part of the problem for the D's is that because they allowed W to pack the courts with ideologues, they may actually lose the rulings even though they have a strong objective case.

It's all about protecting W, Cheney,and Karl, at all costs.

Posted by: rugger9 | April 10, 2007 at 20:09
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TPM says the DoJ will fight the subpeonas as overly broad and intrusive.

A commenter there noted that neither the Senate nor the House has the authority to "civilly" enforce a subpoena, or a contempt order. I don't know if that means Congress does have authority to enforce a criminal order - and I don't know if Congress has the authority to even issue a criminal citation.

It'll have to go to the courts. That runs out the clock, if nothing else.

Posted by: CaseyL | April 10, 2007 at 20:48
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Conyers' people came across something big. They have Abu by the short hairs, and they showed just enough to let him know he's screwed no matter what, and big time. And so the subpoena is really just an invitation to get him a little bit off the hook. He's still going to be hooked. If this goes to the Supremes, and it surely will, the DOJ will lose. And though people still talk about running out the clock, remember, it's April 2007, and the clock will run to around September 2008. They've got lots of time, and lots of time to Impeach Bush in December 2008 to cut off the pardons.

Posted by: knut wicksell | April 10, 2007 at 20:49
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knut

We don't have that much time. At least in my state (one USA purged, the other seemingly bought off), the voter purge they've got planned will already be well under way.

They need to get Gonzales and Bush out by July 2008 at the latest if we really want to ensure the USA purge doesn't have its desired effect.

Posted by: emptywheel | April 10, 2007 at 20:52
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Oh man, I've been waiting for them to ask for this. I wonder if they'll release the files on their website. If not, I'll happily volunteer to help with the forensics.

Posted by: William Ockham | April 10, 2007 at 20:59
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Please do, WO, I haven't seen you this engaged since we considered how Rove's Hadley email could have escaped detection. I think we've got a pretty good idea of how that may have happened. But the technical fun, it seems, is just starting.

I'd be curious, btw, if you put a comment up about the full letter to Hertling. I skimmed the interesting non-technical details, but I'm curious if you think Conyers hit all the possible high spots.

Posted by: emptywheel | April 10, 2007 at 21:14
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Casey,

The House has no civil contempt procedure. The Senate does, but it's not available as against executive branch actors. But either House may avail itself of criminal contempt, either statutory or inherent. Since statutory contempt is prosecuted at the discretion of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, that's an unlikely route. Inherent contempt, however, is prosecuted and adjudicated by the aggrieved House itself.

That's the only real answer to this problem. Unfortunately, key members of the leadership still believe that going to court is a feasible option. If the "administration" simply flatly defies the subpoenas, I don't think the courts will find a justiciable question, at least in the first instance. I think they'll dismiss it as a political question, at least if the "administration" simply refuses to acknowledge the right of the legislative branch to compel action by the executive.

Posted by: Kagro X | April 10, 2007 at 21:44
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Thanks, Kagro; that's exactly the information I was looking for.

Assuming the Senate and House do issue contempt orders, is that when the Sgt at Arms has to go serve/enforce them?

Does he take law enforcement officers? Assistants? Dollies and a Mack truck?

Does he have the authority to enter the building, and offices, and take file cabinets, computers, Blackberries, etc.?

Posted by: CaseyL | April 10, 2007 at 22:09
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I agree with everyone here about the big picture. But I wonder about the "little people" involved.

It is one thing for Fielding to order dribs and drabs to be released, and for gwb to declare "never in hell" and string out the legal case in the courts. I agree with everyone that that is likely.

But what is the liability of the staff attorneys in the Office of Counsel who read and physically segregate documents. When the Dems take over in January 2009 will the loyal service of the staff attorneys look like obstruction of justice?

Are there safe areas, danger areas and gray areas? What can they do safely? What can they safely pretend to know or not know?

And, by the way, who are these people?

Posted by: jwp | April 10, 2007 at 22:10
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Seems to me that Conyers and his staff have been ahead of the blogs suggestions. Is it possible that we should consider how exactly the Sergeant At Arms would go about his/her business? How does that work.[?] Apparently they have the right to arrest and detain even the POTUS. If Conyers doesn't like dicking around, and we have emails proving the gumming to death strategy is in full force, why would he go to the courts?

Also, on the subpoena, at the end it said that the person delivering the documents (is that Alberto?) is "not to depart without leave of said committee or subcommittee." So maybe if Gonzo doesn't produce, they can just lock him away in the House.

Posted by: tomj | April 10, 2007 at 22:32
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I wonder if the WH tech people image the computers (that is, make a copy of all the stuff that's on them) in case they need to restore or rebuild it? Would that include any e-mail that's on it, in Outlook or whatever program they use? Who would have control of the images? Could the committees get hold of those?

(Just thinking off the top of my head. The company I work for does archive e-mails. Don't know for how long, but we're expected to keep the business stuff for legal reasons.)

Posted by: P J Evans | April 10, 2007 at 22:49
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It might be a good idea to run the Abramoff stuff through again, looking for USA and voting stuff. (I just did a quick pass through).
Susan Ralston was using addresses at rnchq.org in 2001-2002 and georgewbush.com in 2002-2004.
There's also an e-mail from Abramoff complaining about something getting into the WH e-mail system in 2003 (932_001 p 14 of 52, or p 16 of 52 - I was sticking it in a Notepad file and the system hung before I could save or post.)

Posted by: P J Evans | April 10, 2007 at 23:59
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bcc: data is very important, and I forgot about it. Conyers has good staff.

We still also haven't seen emails originating from RNC servers, only ones cited in .gov server replies. And native format plus metadata also means the revision history of Word documents, which provides dating evidence on docs that had been collaboratively edited.

I hope that Conyers can do a tag-team with Waxmanon this w/r/t security and archiving requirements. Because I'm pretty certain that a free-and-clear backchannel and a security clearance are mutually exclusive.

Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | April 11, 2007 at 00:46
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I realize we're a ways yet from the point where this is a concern, but might not the RNC have a slight problem of its own, you know, potentially, if e-mails discussing obstruction of justice schemes show up on servers it let people use? Especially since they seem to be holding the beneficial end of a lot of those schemes. At least, might they not have to explain some things in public about how they determine who uses their stuff and what kinds of business-like monitoring they do?

I wonder if the party has missed their chance to cut these guys loose—if that were possible.

Posted by: prostratedragon | April 11, 2007 at 03:06
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ew,

I'll say this. Conyers has a good technical staff. I especially like the bit requesting the DOJ to image the computers of folks in the White House and at the RNC. The only bit I'm unclear on is whether he actually requested the physical computers of the people who left the DOJ (Sampson, Goodling, Battle). If I were running this show, I would definitely want those.

It's obvious from the document dumps so far that several important pieces of the puzzle are being held back. For example, we clearly don't have the first version of Sampson's Word document (USA Replacement Plan.doc) because in the earliest version from the document dump, Iglesias has already been tacked on at the end (out of order).

By the way, I'm absolutely serious about volunteering. If Conyers wants help, I'll take the time off from my day job and go to D.C. Piecing this stuff together can be tedious, but it is more rewarding than finishing the Sunday NYT Crossword.

Posted by: William Ockham | April 11, 2007 at 09:00
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Keep in mind that the more detailed citations were from April 2, when Conyers was still operating under the assumption of cooperation. I think he was just saying, "we'll be wanting Monica's computer," at that point, which would be consistent with his request elsewhere in the letter that they hold onto things.

But then we've got another few layers of escalation before the Seargant at Arms goes and seizes Monica's computer. Luckily, computers don't have Fifth Amendment privileges.

Posted by: emptywheel | April 11, 2007 at 09:41
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It just dawned on me why Conyers is suspicious of bcc's. There are at least a few occasions where Kyle Sampson forwarded an email his own account. The only reason I've ever seen to do that is so you can bcc somebody else (although in more recent versions of Outlook you don't need to do that, you can bcc somebody without anyone in the to: field). Again, somebody working for Conyers has been around the block a time or two.

Posted by: William Ockham | April 11, 2007 at 10:30
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EW--Do we assume that Pat Fitzgerald knows about the RNC emails? He is too smart to have missed that trick unless he was lied to about that and told that the RNC emails contained no official White House business? The discovery requests included emails but did they specify emails only from the White House server when KR was doing 90% of his from his RNC account/s?

And one more thing, please WO, call Conyers office, even if their tech person picks your brain to make sure they've covered everything.

Posted by: Jane S. | April 11, 2007 at 11:17
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ew,

Take a look at OAG000000239 - 241 (pg. 54-56 of DOJDocsPt7-2070319.pdf). Michael Elston sends an email with the subject "Without Cause" [Quote marks in the original] to Sampson, Scolinos, Roehrkasse, Goodling, and Moschella. Elston sends the email at 10:07 pm on 01/17/2007. At 10:11pm, Sampson hits "Reply All" and responds "Got it." At 1012pm, Sampson forwards the email to his own account. The only reasonable explanation for that is so he could bcc somebody else. I'll make a wild guess that the account that was bcc'ed was kr@georgewbush.com.

Posted by: William Ockham | April 11, 2007 at 11:31
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WO

Or, at the very least, AGAG. After all, one or the other scenario is what happened with the other forwarded email we were talking about.

In other words, either ROve or AGAG were informed of every step of this process. But they don't want us to know taht.

Posted by: emptywheel | April 11, 2007 at 11:57
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Rove, obviously. They could never have counted on Alberto keeping things straight.

Posted by: Mimikatz | April 11, 2007 at 12:28
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ew,

I don't think AGAG uses email much. On a slightly related note, I think Conyers, et. al., might want to start a conversation with RIM (the Canadian firm that runs the Blackberry Service) to see what they may have in the way of responsive documents.

Posted by: William Ockham | April 11, 2007 at 12:35
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Agree with both of you--it's most likely Rove. Just wanted to raise the possibility it's AGAG, bc it would explain why he's so damn flummoxed right now. Then again, so would Mimikatz' eplanation: he's flummoxed because he can't keep things straight.

Posted by: emptywheel | April 11, 2007 at 12:41