Goodling may be offered immunity.

in

“The House Judiciary Committee is ’strongly considering’ offering former DoJ official Monica Goodling immunity in exchange for her testimony in the U.S. Attorney matter, according to one very solid congressional source. Goodling had preemptively asserted her Fifth Amendment rights and has declined to be interviewed or to testify before Congress. … Per Pete Williams, Goodling’s attorney, John Dowd, has no comment on the immunity question.”


UPDATE: Time magazine has a similar report.

(Via Think Progress.)

Perino ‘Defends’ Email Statements: I Didn’t Lie, I Just Had No Idea What I Was Talking About

in

In this afternoon’s press briefing, the White House press corps confronted spokeswoman Dana Perino about her previous misstatements regarding the White House’s use of RNC email accounts. On March 27, Perino claimed that there were only a “handful” of staffers with such accounts. Today, Perino claimed that her earlier statement was made despite her ignorance of what was actually going on. “Well, I didn’t know how many there were,” Perino said. “I grant you, it’s a very large handful.”


CNN’s White House correspondent Ed Henry then pressed her on why she had earlier stated that RNC emails had been archived for a very long time when the White House now claims that those emails have been lost. On March 27, Perino said RNC archiving was “something that was in place” for years. Today, she backed off that statement and said, “We have developed a better understanding of how the RNC archived or did not archive certain e-mails.” She refused to further elaborate.


Watch it:



Screenshot


Perino defended herself, arguing, “When I said a ‘handful,’ I was asked based on something that I didn’t know.” Apparently, Perino believes if you don’t know the truth, you’re allowed to make up whatever you want.


Transcript: (more…)

(Via Think Progress.)

White House lost 5 million emails.

in

“CREW learned that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over FIVE MILLION emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel’s office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.” Read the full report HERE.

(Via Think Progress.)

White House withholds the evidence

in

that proves it acted against federal law. Dan Froomkin writes in his online Washington Post column:


[W]hen I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: “Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff,” says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.


“As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication.”


The handbook further explains: “The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements.”


And if that wasn’t clear enough, the handbook notes — as was the case in the Clinton administration — that “commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements.”


Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which — due to Stanzel’s refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues — raised more questions than it answered.

(Via Think Progress.)