Top Senators: White House Emails Covered Up, Not Destroyed

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Headlines proclaim millions of White House/RNC emails have been "lost." But does that mean they have been destroyed forever or are they simply missing? According to the two top Senate Judiciary members, the emails have not mysteriously disappeared but are actively being hidden by the Bush Administration.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today," Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy declared on the Senate floor Thursday. "They've gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

"There's good reason to believe that they can be found if we look hard enough," said Ranking Member Arlen Specter.

These guys know what they are talking about, unlike Sen. Ted "series of tubes" Stevens. Just because Karl Rove hits the "delete" button on an email does not mean that all record of the message has been erased. All reasonably sized organizations typically monitor and record any incoming and outgoing activity behind the scenes.

Despite their better efforts, White House officials may not have succeeded in destroying their own records as they seem to have hoped. Since releasing more emails would reveal even more lies, the easiest thing to do at this point is to say there are no more emails to be found.

That is, "we're talking about known unknowns, to bring back a favorite phrase," according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

The White House now says it is trying to find the "missing" data, but if anything still exists it certainly has not gone anywhere else on its own. Administration officials have clearly tried to obstruct investigations into the Plame and U.S. Attorney scandals by deleting their emails in the first place.

The question is whether they are continuing to obstruct these investigations by hiding any remaining records of communications. According to Leahy, Specter, and our trusty Magic 8-Ball, all signs point to yes.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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