That’s what I get for relying on mainstream media’s reporting of the White House email scandal.

In a prior post, I erroneously wrote that the email scandal was solely about the use of the RNC’s email system that resulted in the loss of millions of emails.

Well, I’ll say it again: this is wrong.

You see, there are actually two branches to this scandal:

1. Missing White House emails: one of the things I got right in my previous post was that the White House is supposed to adequately archive all of its communications. Last week, White House spokesperson Dana Perrino said that the White House “screwed up” and “lost” roughly 5 million emails for the period between March 2003 and October 2005. This is a clear violation of the Presidential Records Act, which was clarified by the Clinton administration to include emails.
2. The use of RNC accounts for conducting official business: As stated in the previous post, certain White House staff were issued laptops by the Republican National Committee for any campaign-related activity. The idea, according to the RNC, was to avoid any Hatch Act violations, as a federal employee may not engage in any campaign-related activities while on duty or use any federal resources towards that end. Instead, they seem to have done something worse. It appears that certain White House staff were using the RNC email system for official business. Follow me here. It would be like sending out work-related emails over your Yahoo account so, for example, you wouldn’t have to worry about scrutiny from your employer. Even worse, Karl Rove was given the ability to delete emails so, about 4 year’s worth of the emails he sent out over this system have conveniently gone missing. This also violates the Presidential Records Act because they were supposed to use the official system for official business.

It’s no small wonder that the press got this confused. The Bushies have managed to create two scandals in one. So, as you can tell, this is a big deal because, in this time, you had the issues around the Iraq War, which included the outing of an covert CIA agent (the cover-up which landed Scooter Libby a conviction). In that time, you also have the attorney scandal, in which conversations may have gone back to these time periods. Honestly, who knows what was “lost”. What I do know is that it’s highly suspicious that these emails go missing when the Democrats are in charge and can subpoena these documents.

So, honestly, I am led to believe that this “accident” was more intentional than anyone wants to say.

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