White House in one problem after another
April 13th, 2007 by ashish
As per a law passed during the Nixon administration, official correspondence by the White House is supposed to be through offical email systems so that all official records are preserved. With all the controversy about the firing of US attorneys, one would have thought that there was actually no need to add to the cotroversy. However, it turns out there was more. Some communication between White House aides was on an email system that was outside the official domain; on a domain called gwb43.com. It does not take rocket science to figure out what gwb43.com stands for (George White Bush, president # 43). This is a Republican National Committee domain.
The idea used to explain this use of a separate domain is that these accounts are used for political work rather than for official work. However, in the politically partisan environment of Washinton DC, and with the current controversy about the firing of the attorneys seen as a blatantly partisan move, the Democratic party will use these emails to allege that the entire action of the White House in using these accounts was to hide its action, and is threatening to use its subpoena powers to summon the Attorney General and other officials to explain the attorneys case, essentially to further embarass the Bush Administration.
Read more about the issue at the CNN article:
Congressional investigators say they found communications on one account from top White House aides about official matters, like the December firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Those e-mails were discovered on a Republican National Committee e-mail domain called gwb43.com. That domain is not part of the official White House communication system.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent letters to the RNC and the former head of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, arguing that outside e-mails are subject to the act.
