It was a Friday afternoon in July, and the witness was just a small fry: Alexander Butterfield, who kept President Nixon's schedule and handled his paper flow. Three staff members of the Senate Watergate Committee were questioning him, preparing for his public testimony the following Monday.
Trolling, one asked whether there might be something down at the White House, some sort of recording system?
Butterfield took a breath.
"I was hoping you fellows wouldn't ask me that," he said.
That's the beginning of a 1997 retrospective in the Houston Chronicle on Watergate. Alexander Porter Butterfield, though a bit player in the Watergate saga, was perhaps the pivotal one. Without Butterfield's revelation, there would have no clear case of obstruction of justice against Richard Nixon. The Executive Privilege claim that Nixon resorted to in a vain attempt to keep the tapes out of the hands of the Special Prosecutor and the Senate Watergate Committee prompted a landmark Supreme Court decision, the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre," and ultimately Nixon's resignation.
This little tale has current relevance. We have a current Administration as base and secretive as Nixon's; in fact, with many of the same players. Certainly many of them remember what brought Nixon down, and you can guarantee that there are no tapes this time around. But hubris takes many forms. The "tapes" this time around are the alternate email system being used by the White House. We know it exists; we know it has been used improperly for communication about official Government business. The only remaining question is: how extensively was it used?
As it happens, the public at large can't get very far in investigating it:
CREW currently is involved in several lawsuits challenging other improper and illegal record keeping practices of the Bush administration. In this matter, CREW cannot bring a lawsuit challenging the White House on its compliance with the PRA because of a legal precedent that relies on presidents to honor the mandatory record-keeping practices, with no judicial review.
Congress can , however, and the one person we know has used the system is Kyle Sampson, who now appears eager to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee next Thursday. The Committee must grill Sampson about the alternate email system. Who else used it? Under what circumstances? Why would someone not used the regular system?
Here, of course, we come to the dicey part. Assuming it was used inappropriately (nearly a certainty), there's every chance it will get wiped, if it hasn't been already. No matter. First of all, if we can establish its nefarious purpose, the destruction of the emails will fairly scream obstruction of justice. Second, I remind you oldsters that we said the same thing about Nixon's tapes, especially when Rosemary Woods' contortions became public. Guess what? Most of the tapes were not erased. Hubris? I don't know; but I do know I want to go after that email system, which promises investigative treasures untold, and a Presidency in flames.
Finally, one of those historical coincidences: the "troller" in the quote above was none other than Fred Thompson, now considering a Republican run at the Presidency.