Karl Rove And The Case Of The Missing Email. I'm on a roll with the right search words. This is what happens when you undermine the integrity of the US Attorneys. Has anyone asked KR why he switched from using the WH mail server to the RNC mail server?

Does Fitz have something to hide?

He said he hadn't discussed the matter with anyone at the Justice Department but made it clear he had been kidded plenty.

Excuses. They are like backsides. Everybody's got one and they all stink.

Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used. (The White House and Fitzgerald both declined to comment.)

Cooperation, then and now. What a difference between KR's willingness to turn over lost emails to Patrick Fitzgerald and years later. Especially when years later, he should have already figured out how to archive his correspondence.

According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, Bush's senior adviser tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to information that led to the recent "discovery" of 250 pages of missing email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.......

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

What else did Rove say to Fitzgerald?

When did Rove start using the RNC mail server?

Fitzgerald was concerned that Rove had hidden or destroyed a very important document tying him to the leak. His suspicions may have been right: an email he sent to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in early July 2003 later proved Rove had spoken to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame-a fact that Rove omitted when he was first interviewed by the FBI.

I'll bet he thought that wouldn't happen again. Now he uses the RNC server 95% of the time on taxpayer money. Is the server secure?

No more deletions for you!

A lawyer for the RNC told congressional investigators that the RNC may be able to recover some of those e-mails sent from August 2004 on. That's when the RNC put a hold on an automatic purge policy.

The RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also said that the Republican committee has none of Rove's e-mails on its server prior to 2005, possibly because Rove deleted them, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Sometime in 2005, the RNC took action solely to prevent Rove from deleting his e-mails on that server. One reason for specifying Rove, Waxman said, appears to have been pending legal action against him.

Question: Let's see if this is just a stalling technique.
Answer:

Q Dana, is there a limit to the mailbox size with the RNC accounts? Do you know that level of detail, whether you'd have to delete at some point or you couldn't get any more emails?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I know that oftentimes our computers can slow down, but we have an automatic archiving system that comes through and cleans it up for us. And all of the emails, except for the ones -- the very small slice of the universe I've told you about that have the GWB accounts -- any email that touches any part of an EOP or White House server or computer, those are automatically preserved.

The AG told Karl Rove when and how to back his email files. Who is keeping the backup tapes?

None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.

Seems to me that we've heard this song before.

The White House failed to archive some e-mails in accordance with normal procedures in 2003, according to a letter from a special prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Why wasn't he fired?

US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading a CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong US Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak US Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

Axed attorneys, Daniel Bogden (Nevada) and Paul K. Charlton (Arizona) received the same grade. As my students would say, "It isn't fair."  ¶ 8:45 PM