FWIW, for a number of reasons I suspect that Fitzgerald hit a wall investigating the cover-up, including the email deletions, which was probably only indirectly Rove

emptywheel… please explain

And since the Abramoff investigation (Carol Lam) and Valerie Plame-outing investigation (Patrick Fitzgerald) appear to overlap timewise, what was the scuttlebutt circulating around the Justice Department about Carol Lam’s aggressive pursuit of everyone connected to Abramoff compared to Patrick Fitzgerald going after apparently all those in the White House behind the outing of Valerie Plame, but finally settling on only charging one of the culprits, Scooter Libby, with lying and obstructing justice?

In other words, in the Republican-dominated Justice Department, the aggressive manner in which Carol Lam was pursuing charges against a whole slew of Republicans associated with Abramoff, following the trail of Republican corruption wherever it led her, would have raised some eyebrows, and caused some alarm, especially among the purely-partisan political operatives (like Rove, Gonzales, Goodling, Sampson, etal.), thus finally leading to her being fired unceremoniously.

On the other hand, there is still a lingering suspicion (at least on my part) about how aggressive Patrick Fitzgerald has been in bringing charges against the White House officials responsible for disclosing the beyond-top-secret identity of a covert CIA officer, which then led to the further disclosure of her clandestine intelligence-gathering network, causing irreparable harm to our national security.

So, this is why I hope Waxman gets Fitzgerald before him to ask him questions like: over the past several years, what was the scuttlebutt circulating around the Justice Department regarding Carol Lam’s aggressive investigation into all things Abramoff? Was there any indication in the rumors that her job was in jeopardy because of her digging into all things Abramoff? If so, Mr. Fitzgerald, what was your reaction to hearing that Mrs. Lam’s job status as a U.S. Attorney was endangered due to her trying to get to the bottom of some apparently widespread Republican corruption? And Mr. Fitzgerald, did the rumors that Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales were out to “get” Carol Lam have any effect on your not bringing treason charges against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and any other White House officials involved in intentionally or unintentionally (Ha!) disclosing Valerie Plame’s beyond-top-secret CIA identity? And finally, Mr. Fitzgerald, were any blatant or veiled threats made to you or anyone on your investigative team by anyone in the White House or Justice Department?

I guess why I’m curious about all this is that I haven’t seen any indication yet that Patrick Fitzgerald had the RNC’s email server seized upon his learning that the Republicans had established an email “back channel” to circumvent the law regarding and requiring executive branch record preservation. And because it wasn’t seized, no forensic retrieval of any emails relating to the Valerie Plame case was attempted.

Oh, and a sidenote. If a computer, blackberry or whatever is paid for with taxpayer money, then the White House officials don’t own it, we do. On the other hand, by the RNC handing out blackberries, etc. and setting up a “back channel” email service, not paid for with taxpayer money, then you know they figured on getting around the records preservation law in this way, and all these RNC-donated items would have disappeared once Bush’s last term in office ended, even though all these RNC-donated items were heavily used in daily White House activities.

Just another loophole Gonzales and his legal weasels have exploited. Like the term “waterboarding” not being specifically mentioned in the Geneva Conventions.

His “innocent” explanation to ABC News for Rove’s handling of email fails to account for the fact that Luskin felt the need in October, 2004 (just as Matthew Cooper was being held in contempt of court for refusing to testify about his Rove conversation) to first desperately search for and suddenly find, and secondly ensure that Rove handed over to the grand jury on October 15, a paper copy of an email that had been printed off Rove’s computer in November, 2003, and had apparently been in Luskin’s possession since [the infamous 7/11/03 Rove-Hadley email re Cooper]. Why didn’t Luskin and Rove assume/know that Fitzgerald would already have possession of said email as a result of his forensic work and ‘full’ access to Rove’s computer data in “the summer of 2004″ (as well as from the normal course of document production in fall, 2003)? Or did they so assume? And did Fitzgerald already have that email from another source or source(s)? Or not? And if not, why not, Mr. Luskin???

With regard to Luskin’s new statement, note this language from Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s August 27, 2004 Affidavit, which he submitted to the D.C. District Court in opposition to Motions to Quash grand jury subpoenas — in this case motions filed to quash subpoenas issued to Judith Miller and (apparently) Walter Pincus [from Page 29 of the Affidavit, emphasis added]:

“…An experienced team of FBI agents has been working on the case since October 2003, led by Special Agent Jack Eckenrode then of the Inspection Division. At least six agents have been assigned to the case at any time and extensive forensic computer and telephone work is being done…Besides my own participation in the factual investigation, the First Assistant United States Attorney, the Chief of the Criminal Division, the Chief of Appeals and the Chief of Public Corruption have participated to varying degrees in the discussion of legal issues, including analyzing the relevant statutes, analyzing the First Amendment issues and determining the available means to obtain electronic evidence…”

Rove, who was cleared of any wrongdoing in the investigation in June 2006, had been subpoenaed for all of his e-mail accounts by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. The investigation looked into whether an administration official had leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and resulted in the perjury and obstruction conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Scooter Libby.

Luskin explained, “Fitzgerald issued subpoenas for the White House, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Republican National Committee. There was no issue for documents for this period of time,” he said, referring to a time frame from which the White House is missing e-mails.

“Karl volunteered to image all the hard drives — the RNC hard drive, his own personal home computer and his BlackBerry. The FBI performed the imaging. Fitzgerald was interested in documents for the spring, summer and fall of 2003. They were copied the summer of 2004 and given to Pat Fitzgerald without conditions” Luskin said.

Somebody’s got copies of the RNC & Karl’s pre-summer 2004 (August, perhaps?) hard drives and apparently Karl doesn’t mind sharing privileged info.

I think only that, when they saw Waxman invite Fitzgerald into chat, they intervened to prevent even that from happening. Had Fitz chatted to Waxman (understandbly saying, “no, you need to do the proper paperwork), then eventually Waxman would have gotten at least some of the GJ information.

But Hertling jumped in.

It owuldn’t have led to indictments, just potentially furthre movement into it.

[snip]

It’s crystal clear he wasn’t the one who made the decision not to chat with Waxman the last time. It was the decision of Richard Hertling, one of the same fools who is dumping 2000 emails on us every other week. So the issue is to find a way to give Waxman (or Conyers) reason to renew the inquiry, and to do so in such a way that DOJ can’t intervene again.

And yes, as I said in my post, this should do the trick.

Unfortunately, my time allowed to edit my previous comment on this message elapsed before I could add this:

EW, I appreciate this reference to Hertling. Is it your opinion, then, that Hertling was told to keep a short leash on Fitzgerald, and that Hertling has been the main obstacle keeping Fitzpatrick from following up on the Libby conviction with other indictments?

Mary4 @ 78

lhp @ 73 – oh I mean by subpeona. But where I think, even with a subpeona, he had legitimate grounds to not answer on the earlier, more vague inquiries, I think if they nail it down to inquiries about the parallel email system, which they are investigating for possible vioaltions of the Presidential Records Act, then DOJ (which will be unhappy) and Fitzgerald (I doubt he cares much either way, except doing his job) both have a much harder time stating a reason to keep him from responding.

No exec privilege and I think the point you made earlier about sharing info for investigations has a very specific matter now and for that limited purpose he and any FBI who worked on the computer, etc. could be compelled for this issue. Do you think so?

It’s crystal clear he wasn’t the one who made the decision not to chat with Waxman the last time. It was the decision of Richard Hertling, one of the same fools who is dumping 2000 emails on us every other week. So the issue is to find a way to give Waxman (or Conyers) reason to renew the inquiry, and to do so in such a way that DOJ can’t intervene again.

And yes, as I said in my post, this should do the trick.

Geez, when EW, Mary4, & LHP are all in alignment, you can bet real money on it you can start making plans accordingly!

Bob in HI

On the Clock @ 147

I could swear there was a major fire a couple of years back at the Olney facility. But I can’t find any mention of it. Anyone with a memory or link out there?

You’re probably thinking of the fire at Fort Meade

Pics here [give it a minute to load]

That’s the one. Only five months ago, too. Dense times, dense times. tx

Peace!
Colossians 3:23