It is no doubt clear to any interested reader that the investigation into the Prosecutor Purge by congress has been profoundly obstructed: By delayed production of documents, by redaction of content, and by withholding content.
The White House, pundits shilling for the administration, and those who favor the “Unitary Executive” return to monarchy have offered justification centered upon the concept of executive privilege, “executive interest” and “executive equity”. Unfortunately for them, we still have a Constitution that permits oversight by coequal branches, and interested citizens who care about democracy.
I am intellectually and academically incompetent to argue a case against executive privilege here. But I will provide more evidence for the obstruction hidden behind the principle:
Delayed Production of Documents
On March 8, 2007, Congress requested any and all documents pertaining to the Prosecutor Purge. This letter likely precipitated the crisis at DOJ that caused Monica Goodling to break down in tears and Kyle Sampson to reveal his “secret file” to David Margolis, and ultimately, Paul McNulty.
Since that time, the DOJ has released 9229 pages of documents, as then released publicly by the HJC.
The DOJ responded to the inquiry with 144 pages of documents (1.56% of total documents), released by the HJC on 3/13/07.
In the following month, DOJ released 6292 more pages (68.2% of total, 69.7% cumulative)
From 4/13-4/29 DOJ released the remainder of documents.
Redaction of content
Numerous documents are highly redacted. Lists of US Attorneys considered for firing were redacted to show only the ones later fired.
Also see:
List 2
Page 6, and same file Page 12
And
List 3
Page 62
A critical meeting held on March 5, 2006, to discuss the upcoming testimony of William Moschella was discussed in emails. This meeting was attended by Karl Rove. When originally released only some of the emails pertaining to this meeting were released, and they were redacted heavily. There were conspicuously missing subject headers (although this could also be due to a lack of subject in the original message), and no references to attendees (Rove) or topic of discussion after redaction.
There are many more redactions, but another one seems significant in light of RNC server issues. USA replacement Tim Griffin was a former deputy of Karl Rove. His emails originate from several accounts, but a portion of his emails contain redactions. Specifically, the server is not identified. This raises the possibility that Griffin was using a gwb43 account at the time he was working for Bud Cummins in Arkansas and being installed by Monica Goodling as Bud Cummins' replacement.
Withholding Content
Kyle Sampson kept a file of emails that document White House involvement in the Prosecutor Purge, that was disclosed on 4/29/07.
The withheld documents include 160 unique emails, 7.6% of the 2101 total unique emails identified by the DOJ.
The majority of the withheld documents contain internal DOJ-DOJ communications. Only 2 of the 160 withheld emails were SENT by White House personnel (Miers, Jennings, Sarah Taylor, William Kelley, or Chris Oprison). The DOJ previously released many documents sent from White House personnel. This includes 26 emails sent from the White House during the period following the firing. Thus as a matter of principle, White House seems to have forfeited executive privilege, and is withholding these emails because they are particularly damaging.
I have previously diaried about the fact that this file contains 60% of the emails sent by Kyle Sampson after the firings, but that the order to withhold content must originate at the top of the DOJ or White House, because there are more than 10 DOJ employees who were senders or recipients of the withheld emails.
The following graph shows the percentage of emails in the period following the firing sent or received by White House personnel, that are being withheld from release to Congress.
These percentages represent the following:
3 withheld of 8 total- Miers, 1 withheld of 5 total- Jennings, 10 withheld of 19 total- Kelley, 16 withheld of 63 total Oprison, 6 withheld of 7 total- Taylor, and 36 withheld of 102 total to all the WH players.
Thus, it appears that the suppression of these emails is to prevent Congress from understanding the White House involvement in the scandal. How is it legally or morally acceptable that the DOJ can release 65% of emails involving White House Senders and Recipients, but withhold 35% without clear justification? I hope Congress is asking this question, and I wish that the mainstream media would as well.
I'll end with the point that this analysis is possible just with the emails that have been disclosed. I have previously diaried that based on email traffic, there are likely to be many more emails that have yet to be disclosed.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the Daily Kos volunteers who have completed the database compiling and indexing DOJ emails and permits analysis of email traffic. They have put in countless hours and should be commended. They include:
Audrey, MsWings, Ethan's Mom, WTF, Madhaus, davidincleveland, Howard, Fanaa, Brian, Michelle, Michael, Miss Butter, Pandora, Eli, OkieByAccident, Keith, Marco, Gray, Tracie, Thom K in LA, leveymg, and Valerie.