E-Mail Search Takes Byte Out of RNC Coffers
Nothing comes cheap in Washington, including Karl Rove's missing e-mails. Just ask the Republican National Committee, which seems to be spending a pretty penny looking for them.
Earlier this year, it was discovered that Rove and other White House aides had been using private e-mail accounts at the RNC to send messages about controversial government matters, such as the firings of U.S. attorneys. When investigators came calling, the RNC couldn't find the e-mails but promised to look.
Now, The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.
According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg, a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost electronic data. The report shows the committee also paid $41,217 in October to Covington & Burling, the law firm representing the RNC on the missing e-mail controversy.
Democrats in Congress are hot to lay their hands on the e-mails as they try to figure out just how much political considerations were influencing policy, like the prosecutors purge or the dispensing of HUD grants. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the White House not to destroy any backup tapes of its e-mail.
Covington & Burling recruited Stroz Friedberg for technical support in the search for the missing White House e-mails, as the firm explained in a letter last spring to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
But now that we know the RNC has paid Stroz Friedberg nearly a quarter million dollars, does that mean they've found the missing e-mail messages?
The RNC isn't saying, nor is Stroz Friedberg.
"The RNC has taken the appropriate steps with respect to this matter," committee spokesman Danny Diaz tells The Sleuth. A spokesman for Stroz Friedberg says the firm "cannot comment."
Guess we'll leave it to Congressman Waxman to find out ...
By Mary Ann Akers |
November 28, 2007; 6:05 AM ET
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Posted by: Anonymous | November 28, 2007 9:24 AM
Here is photographic evidence explaining why they won't find any damaging evidence in either the RNC or White House e-mail records... Rove also uses COPTIX. Just another Rovian misdirection that has everyone looking everywhere except his coveted Blackberry...
http://correntewire.com/rove_spotted_in_chattanooga_with_brochure_for_gwb43_com_nameserver_host_can_we_subpoena_the_records_now
Posted by: Dr. T | November 28, 2007 9:58 AM
Dr T:
Unfortunately, the photo itself was the result of a disinformation campaign -- and we were deked. There's material to that effect at the top of the post; but you don't appear to have read it.
That doesn't affect the role of Coptix, or the fact that backup servers in the private sector need to be subpiened just as much as the government ones do.
Here is my mea culpa on the disinformation campaign:
http://www.correntewire.com/on_being_pwned_by_the_vrwc
See also the gwb43.com posts:
http://www.correntewire.com/tags/gwb43_com
Posted by: lambert | November 28, 2007 10:59 AM
It really doesn't matter.
A - Does anyone really believe the missing emails were actually a innocent mistake? hahahahahaha
B - We should all bear in mind that each and every one, if there were any, missing emails is Level 4 national security information and cannot be revealed because we don't want to embolden the terrorists. Kinda like the evidence against the people being tried and convicted in secret. Does anyone think this would not be that case?
Posted by: RetCombatVet | November 28, 2007 12:02 PM
Does anyone believe anything the RNC or Rove or Bush or Cheney, etc says anyway??
How many times do you have to be lied to before you learn? We all know they are dirty, you just can't catch them.
Posted by: Glenn | November 28, 2007 1:07 PM
We all have heard about Bush's secret wiretapping efforts -- which included copying all e-mail traffic. Perhaps Homeland Security can find those missing e-mails. Or did they copy all e-mails except Rove's.
How convenient!
Posted by: walt | November 28, 2007 4:08 PM
Hey, maybe they should have tried Geeks-On-Call. They did a good job erasing Scott Bloc's computer, and for only $1149.00! (online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119621772122306160.html?mod=blog)
Posted by: Capemh | November 28, 2007 4:31 PM
Thank you, GWB and Co. for your help in crippling the RNC! Pretty soon they'll be completely out of $ to help finance GOP campaigns. GWB's got the SADIM touch!
Posted by: nffcnnr | November 28, 2007 4:32 PM
Bribery, torture, secretism, cronyism, elitism, politicism, hypocrisy, lying, incompetence, willful ignorance, smokescreens, malapropisms, sneering, blatant disregard for law, signing statements, recess appointments, tax cuts for the rich during a time of war, record deficits, pandering, shredding of the Constitution, loss of American ideals, squandering of American prestige....I really don't give a F#@* if they find those missing e-mails or not. Although I am glad it's costing the dirty-handed RNC a lot of money.
But what difference will it make if the Democrats don't impeach the S.O.B.'s? With the declaration that impeachment simply is not an option, all accountability goes into the toilet, so who cares about the missing e-mails? Yes, Cheney & Co. broke the law using private e-mail services and deleting the messages, but if there is no impeachment or accountability, BIG F#*@ING DEAL!
Posted by: Michael Szedon | November 28, 2007 9:19 PM
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Posted by: votenic | November 28, 2007 10:58 PM
As other posters say, the emails are not needed. The way they were sent is evidence enough. Why behave in such a blatantly conspiratorial fashion, deliberately evading the legal requirements about recording your correspondence, if not to conspire?
Why were they conspiring? To manipulate public policy, obviously.
If not to the profit of the Republic - which they could openly be seen to serve - then to whose profit did they conspire?
Their own, my friends. To manipulate the policy of the Republic for their own ends. They needed to hide because they were governing America purely to extend their own rule and power, and not for the good of the state. Why else would they need to hide it?
What this is good for is picking out who will never stop defending Bush. People making excuses for this aren't actually in the discussion, they're just reciting setpieces and pretending to debate as a tactic to try to drown out criticism by presenting the illusion of a legitimate counterargument.
There's no doubt of a conspiracy to misrule, there's only questions of the specifics. If you're defending them, you're merely another conspirator.
Posted by: Caleb Matar | November 29, 2007 6:49 AM
The use of taxpayer-owned computers and networks to send private messages on private accounts is theft.
Posted by: rlfast | November 29, 2007 3:55 PM
i hope that the republicans dont read this and figure out they can do the same thing to us good democrats and make us loose all of our hard earned bribe money
Posted by: Anonymous | November 29, 2007 4:53 PM
when was the last time your computer charged you to send an email?
Posted by: rlfast's mom | November 29, 2007 4:55 PM
"Nothing comes cheap in Washington, including Karl Rove's missing e-mails."
I thought it was a crime not to comply with the records-retaining law. Aren't criminals supposed to be arrested and blessed with a speedy trial? Why are these creeps still walking around, collecting bundles from Newsweek and other media panderers for their punditry?
Posted by: ed | November 29, 2007 5:07 PM
Am I the only one to notice that there is an obvious solution to this problem? The NSA has copies. Its massive warrantless wiretapping scheme got copies of pretty much all email traffic in the nation. It has copies of much or most or quite possibly all of the "deleted" emails. Bush is caught in his own trap.
Posted by: Fred | November 29, 2007 5:39 PM
I'm so old, I remember when a teenager could have hacked the applicable servers had posted it on slashdot within a week.
America sure has lost its innovative edge.
Posted by: bartkid | December 1, 2007 5:06 PM
The April 07 CB letter lists 25,500,00 Kilobytes of data. That is about 24 Gigabytes of data. For 37 custodians\users that is hardly approaches "voluminous" In the ESI business that is not much data. Curious to know what the $250 grr was for??? However maybe they have collected more data from 04-10/07 I would take that job any day!!
Posted by: PCinDC | December 4, 2007 8:12 PM
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Check the facts...its Stroz FriedbErg not FriedbUrg.