Fitzgerald Subpoenas and Server Crashes
By: emptywheel Thursday June 18, 2009 8:35 am
CREW reports something that I demonstrated clearly some time ago:
materials subpoenaed by Patrick Fitzgerald in his CIA Leak Investigation were lost in the White House's seemingly intractable problems with email. (h/t Laura Rozen) But
CREW's got new documents proving the case, including this Microsoft Post-Mortem documenting its efforts to conduct an email search in February 2004, in
what is almost certainly the series of subpoenas Fitz issued shortly after taking over the investigation (the date referred to in the post-mortem--January 22--is the date Fitz issued his subpoenas). Here's a summary of the key subpoenaed material:http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/06/anatomy_of_a_wh.html....................
February 6 was Abu Gonzales' deadline to turn third batch of documents over to DOJ, including "records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets." The journalists, with my best take of what the investigators were looking for in brackets, include:
Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times (duh!)
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday (source for their confirmation of Plame's status)
Walter Pincus (Libby conversation, July 12 Plame conversation), Richard Leiby (background for profile), Mike Allen (identity of SAO), Dana Priest (identity of SAO) and Glenn Kessler
, The Washington Post
Matthew Cooper (duh!), John Dickerson , Massimo Calabresi (possible additional source, Wilson interview), Michael Duffy (earlier article) and James Carney (earlier article), Time magazine
Evan Thomas, Newsweek (why Evan Thomas? was he the "they're coming after you" journalist?)
Andrea Mitchell , "Meet the Press," NBC
Chris Matthews ("your wife is fair game"), "Hardball," MSNBC
Tim Russert (Libby complaint), Campbell Brown (why Campbell Brown?), NBC
Nicholas D. Kristof (Wilson column), David E. Sanger (January 24 document leak)and Judith Miller (duh!), The New York Times
Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot (July 17 NIE leak), The Wall Street Journal
John Solomon, The Associated Press (why John Solomon?)
Jeff Gannon ( knew Plame's identity from slumber parties at the White House), Talon News
................
Remarkably (well, not really), the day before this subpoena was due, the White House's email server crashed:
On 2/5/04, the EOPRM server's drives crashed and caused the server to bluescreen at bootup.
...........................
*** February 2, 2004: Addington drafts a letter to Keith Roberts, Acting General Counsel, Office of Administration, listing the new terms for a search of the OVP domain. If "Joe Wilson" or "Niger" were mentioned in the October 1 gaggle, the October 1 Martin to Mayfield email should have been found in this search. No email archive of WH emails.
February 3, 2004: No email archive of WH emails.
February 7, 2004: No email archive of OVP or WH emails.
February 8, 2004: No email archive of OVP or WH emails.
What a bunch of coinkydinks, huh?
There are more documents relating to OVP that I'm sure will keep me, William Ockham, and MadDog busy all day.
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) had particular problems with missing emails. Several of the documents discuss copying and conducting a manual review of more than 200 PST files from OVP. OAP00000377, OAP00000741, OAP00000790, OAP00001411, OAP00001415. This review may have led to the creation of a spreadsheet compiling information about the OVP PST files, which showed gaps in the dates of preserved messages preserved. OAP00000778. One of those gaps was from at least October 1-3, 2003, a period for which Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald sought email during his investigation of the leaks that led the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s identity. OAP00000377.
more:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/18/fitzgerald-subpoenas-and-server-crashes/
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