[NYTr] Bush Email Mystery Deepens; Some Mail Shows Political Pressure

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Posted by Rich Winkel (activ-l)
AZBC via Truthiut - Aug 31, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/083107S.shtml

Bush Email Mystery Deepens: White House Won't Name Tech Contractor

By Justin Rood
ABC News

    The White House will not identify a private company which appears to
be involved in the disappearance of millions of White House e-mails.

    The company was responsible for reviewing and archiving White House
e-mails, a White House official told congressional staff in May,
according to a letter yesterday from House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Congressional
investigators asked then for the name of the company and "have
repeatedly requested" the information since then, according to Waxman.

    They are still waiting for an answer, the chairman wrote to White
House counsel Fred Fielding. Waxman asked the White House to come up
with the company's name by Sept. 10.

    White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to tell the Blotter on
ABCNews.com the company's name or explain why the White House would not
provide it to Congress.

    "We are reviewing Rep. Waxman's letter and will respond
expeditiously," Stanzel said in an e-mailed statement.

    According to the White House, at least five million e-mails were not
properly archived and may be lost forever, in apparent violation of the
Presidential Records Act. The post-Watergate law states that
communications relating to official activity in the offices of the
president and vice president are owned by the American public and cannot
be destroyed.

    The unnamed firm "was responsible for the daily audits of the e-mail
system and the e-mail archiving process," Waxman said a White House
briefer had attested in a May meeting.

    The firm worked for the Information Assurance Directorate, under the
White House chief information officer, Waxman said he was told.

    In addition to requesting the firm's name, Waxman's staff has also
asked to see a White House report which detailed the days on which few
or no e-mails were archived; the White House has been similarly
unresponsive to that request, Waxman charged, and asked it provide the
document by Sept. 10 as well.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry
Waxman's Letter:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070830152740.pdf

                             ***

The Washington Post via Truthout - Aug 31, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/083107D.shtml

In Emails, Political Pressure on Ex-Surgeon General

By Christopher Lee
The Washington Post

    White House officials viewed former surgeon general Richard H.
Carmona as a public relations tool, pushing him to make political
appearances and promote the Bush administration's agenda while he was in
office, according to a series of executive branch e-mails released
yesterday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

    The 18 pages of e-mails back up Carmona's testimony before a House
committee in July that he routinely battled Bush appointees who sought to
rewrite his speeches, send him on political trips, and suppress his
reports on global health, prison health and other politically sensitive
topics. President Bush and other administration officials rejected the
accusation.

    An e-mail on Feb. 6, 2006, includes a memo to Carmona from then-White
House political director Sara Taylor requesting that he deliver the
keynote speech to the Alabama Republican Council's annual fundraiser in
Birmingham on March 4 of that year. "WH would be grateful if you could do
this event," Jamie Burke, the White House liaison at the Department of
Health and Human Services, wrote in her cover note.

    Carmona replied that "this one may present a conflict since it
appears to be a fundraiser and OGC [Office of General Counsel] has
previously told me to stay away from those type of events." He did not
attend.

    Richard Finley, chairman of the Alabama group, which represents black
Republicans, said yesterday that he wanted Carmona to discuss health
concerns in the black community.

    In January 2006, Burke sent Carmona several e-mails asking, on behalf
of the White House political office, whether he would speak to a
Fraternal Order of Police gathering in Nashville on Feb. 11. "Just found
out this is a HUGE push from WH - can you do this event?" Burke wrote on
Jan. 23. "Sorry to be such a pest." Carmona made that trip.

    Carmona served as the nation's top public health official from 2002
to 2006, when he was abruptly told he would not be reappointed. The
e-mails show that, early in his tenure, political appointees considered
him uncooperative. In an April 14, 2003, message, for instance, William
Turenne, a former Eli Lilly executive who was serving as a high-level
consultant at HHS, told then-White House liaison Regina Schofield that
she had "a mess" on her hands in Carmona.

    "He needs to be the SG [Surgeon General] with specific speeches, on
specific topics addressing the Secretary's and the president's agenda -
which will become more political as the re-elect gets underway," Turenne
wrote.

    In a Sept. 25, 2002, e-mail to Schofield, Turenne described Carmona
as "wandering" and "not focused on the president's/secretary's agenda."

    "These documents confirm that White House and HHS officials
improperly sought to influence the activities of the Surgeon General to
achieve political goals," Kennedy wrote yesterday in a letter to HHS
Secretary Mike Leavitt.

    Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee, obtained the
e-mails as part of a probe into political interference in public health
matters. In his letter, Kennedy noted that many of the White House
e-mails were sent from Republican National Committee accounts held by
White House officials, and he requested more documents.

    Leavitt declined to comment.

    Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said, "If Dr. Carmona had
concerns about how his office was running, he had an obligation to raise
those concerns while he was in the position."