Bush E-Mail Mystery Deepens: White House Won't Name Tech Contractor

ABC News:

The White House will not identify a private company which appears to be involved in the disappearance of millions of White House e-mails.

The company was responsible for reviewing and archiving White House e-mails, a White House official told congressional staff in May, according to a letter yesterday from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Congressional investigators asked then for the name of the company and "have repeatedly requested" the information since then, according to Waxman.

They are still waiting for an answer, the chairman wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding. Waxman asked the White House to come up with the company's name by Sept. 10.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com the company's name or explain why the White House would not provide it to Congress.

Read the whole story: ABC News

Comments

[ccluelessfl60]

05:05 AM on 09/03/2007

Seems like a no brainer to me. Someone cut this company a government check for it's services.Seems the GAO could ferret that out in a few days of looking. And then they could ask Greg Palast again.

[CarmanK]

11:04 PM on 09/02/2007

Sounds like the old Republican refrain-It's just the ole "unexplained gap" in the Nixon tapes, updated and reframed. Only this time, the internet safety-net is there to catch the dropped bits. Come on,as long as Cheney is around, the White House will stone-wall the Congress and enable the bushies horrific domestic and foreign policies. When the Congress sets a deadline, then it should be adhered to. Stop wasting time.

[Qbear]

03:33 PM on 09/02/2007

Give up the company's name,Georgie Junior, You know hackers will find it...then you can go back to crying on God's shoulder.

[NeoLiberal]

09:38 AM on 09/02/2007

If the White House won't disclose it--then defund the White House.

[NeoLiberal]

09:35 AM on 09/02/2007

The contractor MUST be named, even if in private disclosure before a congressional committee.

Reason: funding accountability.

We taxpayers fund our government. Congress appropriates those funds as it sees fit, as our duly elected representatives.

If the White House will not disclose the contractor's information, we as citizens have no way of ensuring that our money is being spent wisely or LEGALLY.

Period.

[kynandog]

08:00 AM on 09/02/2007

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results

By Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis, Free Press
Posted on April 23, 2007, Printed on April 23, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/50941/

EXCERPT:

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote- from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves -- must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

Numerous tech-savvy bloggers, starting with the online investigative consortium epluribusmedia.org and their November 2006 article cross-posted by contributor luaptifer to Dailykos, and Joseph Cannon's blog at Cannonfire.blogspot.com, outed the RNC tech network. That web-hosting firm is SMARTech Corp. of Chattanooga, TN, operating out of the basement in the old Pioneer Bank building. The firm hosts scores of Republican websites, including georgewbush.com, gop.com and rnc.org.

http://www.st3.com/
http://www.smartechcorp.net/index.php

[NoahVail]

01:42 PM on 09/01/2007

It will take years to find out how sleazy these guys have been, if it is ever revealed. I think Tony Soprano has a better ethical standard than these thugs. At least the Mafia uses their own soldiers to do their hits, instead of our kids.

[getoffmedz]

10:40 PM on 09/01/2007

NoahVail - unfortunately, Tony Soprano is merely a figment of someones imagination. Bush/Cheney are horribly real.

Fair Comment, tho.

[PollM]

01:25 PM on 09/01/2007

Google has them on ---> http://www.youpolls.com

[AntiFascistCanuck]

12:37 PM on 09/01/2007

Quoting Rani-
"As someone who worked in the tech industry for many years, the idea that millions of offical government emails would somehow be "lost forever" is ridiculous. No amount of gross incompetence can explain the meticulous, deliberate, and repeated steps needed to erase data which is copied or "mirrored" in real time onto multiple servers located in different geographic locations. Archived files are further protected by off-site and offline storage separate again from all of the above. The odds of all these databases being "accidentally erased" are less than zero by multiple decimal points."

I concur those e-mails are probably still recoverable.

[Qbear]

12:26 PM on 09/01/2007

The Bush administration is just begging to be HACKED. Come on kids, you used to get into every area of the Pentagon for shits and giggles, and leave annoying messages. Go get these lying B*STARDS, and gloat about how stupid they are.

[unclebucky]

10:12 AM on 09/01/2007

Geez, enough links here, including to Greg Palast, to choke an elephant (not that I would want to choke a real elephant, they are so cute, but like two fat guys in an GOP elephant suit!)

Connect the dots.

Follow the money.

Find the hard copy, haha!

It is all in this thread.

Ugh.

--UB.

[InFRAUDweTRUST]

05:46 AM on 09/01/2007

The Bush Administration are ERRORISTS.

Fucking OOPS.

Make it look like an accident.

[getoffmedz]

11:42 AM on 09/01/2007

InFRAUDweTRUST - yep.

[doinaheckofajob]

03:07 AM on 09/01/2007

Bush sure does enjoy telling America fuckyou every day.

[Qbear]

01:57 AM on 09/01/2007

Lets see the Legislature holds the purse strings for the entire government INCLUDING the White House budget, and Bush thinks they can't have the name of a company Congress is paying the fee?

I don't f*ckin' think so!

[accountability]

12:50 PM on 09/01/2007

Somebody needs to remind them!

[FogBelter]

10:01 PM on 08/31/2007

Come to think of it ... this is a Lose Lose situation for the White House.

Lose ... because if they have to turn over the emails it is unlikely what is contained in them would be as benign as "Gee, don't the Cherry Blossoms in bloom look Swell!"

Lose ... because Executive Privilege was found during the Watergate era, not to be a legitimate defense if it is used to cover up the commission of a crime. Maybe some lawyer can correct me, but withholding or destroying subpeonaed evidence. I think that's called Obstruction of Justice and qualifies as a High Crime and grounds for impeachment.

Maybe the rats who have been seen leaping from the White House realized they were passengers on the Lusitania ... and the torpedo is coming.

Leaving the Bush Administration 15 months out seems a wee bit premature.

[gcallaghan]

06:12 PM on 09/02/2007

...Or, 81 months overdue.