Someone help me understand this "gwb43.com" thing...

[hiaasenrocks]

We discovered this through the document dump, right? If they were trying to use this domain to conceal criminal communications, why would they include this domain in the dump? If it was being used for what we think, they would have known that including it in the dump would be tantamount to blowing the lid on the whole thing, so why not just go all the way and scrub the content?

Don't get me wrong. I'm highly suspicious of this domain. I'm just trying to figure out why this could potentially be huge.

[NMDemDist2]

1. if i understand correctly WH staffers doing business on a non federal

back channel is illegal. they are supposed to save correspondence in order for there to be accountablity and oversight

[hiaasenrocks]

6. I get that part.

It just appears (to this Web novice anyway) that some other threads are saying there's more to it. I've read all the threads and still don't get it. Sorry for my ignorance. :)

I guess it just doesn't make sense that they would reveal this domain. If they knew they had used it criminally, just go ahead and scrub it out of the dump and roll the dice.

[NMDemDist2]

9. i think the staffers at DOJ may have just included them by accident

(on purpose)

you can be sure the professional, career staffers aren't happy about the situation

[hiaasenrocks]

14. Right. Makes sense. I figured that out when I was

typing one of the messages below.

I was overlooking the fact that they could use that domain and keep it a secret only as long as the recipients did as well.

Thanks for helping out. I'm really trying to get a handle on this. Sorry for the confusion.

[Old and In the Way]

33. Exactly...they were reading the messages and subject, maybe scanning for names

But not really thinking about e-mail addresses.

Personally, I think this is the tip of the iceberg. They know that the government servers are subject to audit. I'm betting a lot of the illegal stuff is ciommunicated over the private networks.

[Bucky]

41. Even the politically appointed Republican staffers there are lawyers. Most won't just break the law.

They'll dodge regulations, fudge in the gray areas, push ethics and the rules to the limit, but most lawyers fear disbarment--and frankly get a bigger boner out of evading the spirit of the law without violating the letter of it thatn they would from just doing criminal acts. These aren't two-bit hoods. These are lawyers, a far more dangerous animal to prosecute. They won't conceal evidence outright, because that would get them jail time for sure. But they will play what games they can (the "oversight" of the 18 day gap is a case in point) while they sit around trying to figure out how to defend themselves along the gray margins of the law.

The satisfaction will have to come in the next election. When lawyers use their professional skills to skirt the rules, they rarely face convictions. In the end, firing the US Attorneys itself is not a crime. The president has every right to fire any one of them at any time for no reason at all. The only crimes would be Gonzales's lying to Congress (and a statement of intent to not be political in government matters but then doing so anyway may not quite constitute a prosecutable lie.) Unless there's a real factual cover up, I don't think anyone's going to jail for any of this.

[stillcool]

2. I'm not sure either...

but I think it's because they were using this server in the White House as a private server, but doing official business through it. (?)

[MadMaddie]

3. Know what I think...I think it is symptomatic of this administration

and the DOJ and other organizations under this adminstration...they never think anything through and they are sloppy. What they may have done with the emails is possibly open up a can of worms with data in the emails.

Also there are 16 days missing from the emails. The 16 days prior to the firings of the lawyers late last year.

Ooops...they did it again..

[napi21]

15. Arrogant, sloppy, AND stupid! ya know, if I were going to use an

alternate server to hide communications, the LAST one I would have used isone registered to the RNC! For God sake! Where is their creativity? Hell, use an individual, and alias, SOMETHING that isn't sooo very conspicuous!!!!

[hiaasenrocks]

17. Agreed. AND they aren't used to oversight!

So they're kind of twisting in the wind right now.

Buwahahahaha. I love it.

[whistle]

4. courtesy of salon.com

<snip>
Smoking Gun--Courtesy of RNC?
I found this astonishing, damning post by "Citizen 92" at TPM Muckraker this afternoon. It sure looks like evidence of politicization and obstruction of justice straight out of the RNC handbook.

"In the second document dump, notice that White House Deputy Political Director is writing from the @gwb43.com email domain -- yet his official White House title and phone number is in the footer.

The gwb43.com domain WHOIS record shows that it is owned by the RNC.

Why are White House officials using e-mail accounts that are not their official White House domain server (@who.eop.gov)???

ARE THEY CONSCIOUSLY GOING AROUND HAVING IT REGISTER IN THE EOP SYSTEM SO AS NOT TO BE AN OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL RECORD (and hence, hidden from disclosure???)

Certainly a strange practice for a White House official to use an RNC domain for official communication with the Justice Department!!!

Posted by: Citizen 92

Date: March 13, 2007 01:33 PM"

http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/13/gonzales/view/?show=all

also a nice collection of DU comments here:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hootinholler

[hiaasenrocks]

11. It makes sense that they might have been using these

addresses so as to avoid having them become public, but they've been made public. Why did they reveal it?

[originalpckelly]

16. Answer: they're human beings and this wasn't the White House e-mail server that was dumped...

just the Department of Justice one. For all we know, someone may have slipped it in there on purpose, because there are still good people at DOJ. It could just be a mistake. There are a whole bunch of possibilities.

[hiaasenrocks]

19. Thanks.

It took me a while but I finally got it. :)

That's what I like about DU, though. You can ask a question and folks will help out.

[whistle]

29. Bush's brain short circuited

[Duer 157099]

5. Perhaps they are not very detail oriented?

Maybe it slipped by?

[Old and In the Way]

34. Being stupid and criminal are not mutually exclusive terms.

:rofl:

[sandnsea]

7. What about election tampering?

I didn't realize the gwb43.com was connected to the DoJ documents. If that server has purchsed all those names, and there are Kerry names included - and the White House is directly connected to that server - then the White House may be directly connected to a company that was doing campaigning without the "Approved This Message" tag.

[peacetalksforall]

8. All government communications are supposed to be accounted for.

Conducting government business through a non-government/shared server smells.

Fired US Attys business communicated (in part?) through shared server.

And the 'sharer's' are quite interesting. From RNC to .... well check it out - you can get the gist .... still being explored.

It's called the HOLY CRAP thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x468899

The shared server covers a couple of Republican web sites - organizations that were involved in the phone jamming lawsuit that the Republicans lost.

Maybe some other voting stuff, also.

[napi21]

10. I'm not positive, but I don't think that's how we found that addy.

I've read so manyarticles in the lst few days, I can't keep all the sources straight!

The reason the alternate sites are "illegal" is because all WH emails, from any source, are automatically forwarded to an archived site for preservation. Using alternateemail servers is deliberately circumventing that process.

[hiaasenrocks]

13. I thought it was discovered as part of the document dump.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Actually, as I'm typing this, I think I may have answered one of my own questions. LOL

The WH was using the domain but the DoJ released the docs, and they just failed to coordinate before letting the cat out of the bag.

Maybe? Hmmm.

[originalpckelly]

20. You're right, it's in the e-mails.

That's possible.

[GregD]

12. Message tracking services

As AZDemDist6 stated, they are supposed to save correspondence according to record-keeping rules.

I'm a web developer and one of my clients are in the financial sector. By NASD and/or SIPC rules they are bound by similar rules to retain all business correspondence. So we have the DNS records for their domain pointed at the mail servers at www.seccas.com. Seccas has some system that keeps a record of, and probably indexes all messages in and out. They are retained for a period of time according to the rules. As such, no mail to or from their domains go through my server like most clients do - it all goes through Seccas for capture retention.

The WH probably is using similar technology to capture their mail, thus they use these other (unauthorized) mail servers to exchange messages and avoid the retention archives.

What slays me is that these pukes are freaking stupid enough to keep showing their hand and revealing shit like their use of outside servers. The more we dig down each of these rabbit holes the more likely we can get the bitches out before 2008.

[MadMaddie]

26. Oh yes GregD...for all of their supposed sophistication they claim

they really aren't that savy are they?

What they will claim is they didn't know they were using outside servers and that it's always been done this way. (Ow that hurt trying to think like them).

I am guessing though these alternate servers probably have their own backup process and retention process. Oops....

I am also just guessing that the security on the servers are flawed...sigh because they the Neocons are just that sloppy.

Oh and if the WH is claiming Executive priviledges...which means that the date they don't want public is highly sensitive.....wait for it...
then why put it on an outside Server? Just askin........

:popcorn:

[originalpckelly]

18. Why did I find the GOP voter vault website?

:shrug:

https://votervault.com/vv/

:P

[hiaasenrocks]

21. What the hell is that?!

[originalpckelly]

23. The website they used to co-ordinate their get out the vote.

I found it when I was looking through a list of websites that use the same nameserver as "gwb43.com"

Here is the list, it has a ton of right-wing shit on it:
http://www.robtex.com/dns/gwb43.com.html

[hiaasenrocks]

22. Is this the same?

http://www.vvupload.org/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fSecure%2fDefault.aspx

[originalpckelly]

25. Probably a different front end for the same thing.

I also found an ftp server that's used for the RNC.
http://rncftp.com/

[blogslut]

24. I'm with the sloppy contingent

It probably never occcured to them and they probably never checked for it. They were too busy reading the text of their back emails.

[Contrary1]

27. Look at this:

"...Karl's works in the White house, but "[e-mail]" and Bush-Cheney '04 is responsible for maintaining Karl's uptime.

Technical note: for both email servers the "finger function" is disabled. So, you can't find whether "kr" is the only user of that email server.

However, we can conclude that certain White House communications have been outsourced.

Does anyone remember when a convenient Windows update was made to Flordia state computers after the 2000 election and many emails were--oops!--lost!

And whatdoyaknow? Windows Vista has just been released!!

Also, I suspect that Fitzgerald did not supeona communications from these systems when he investigated the Plame affair. If this was Rove's main email server, then Fitzy--well, it's a sad St. Patrick's day for this snookered Irishman.

And perhaps most important, if matters of National Security were discussed on these servers--and we know that "National Security" is also political--then the very existance of these servers probably violates National Security laws and endangers our county.

Potentially, hackers could break in and find--well, a lot of stuff on National Security.

But--and here it gets amusing or Orwellian, depending upon your sense of humor--someone should subpoena everything on these servers bec. National Security might have been discussed on this alternative channel. But who--the NSC or the DOJ?"

More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/4/135310/0946

[Ilsa]

30. Wow. I wonder about that now as well.

I wonder if Fitz would re-open that investigation if he thought orders were being given through other networks.

[merh]

28. For one thing, using the private server destroys the claim

to executive privilege. It is not WH protected, WH official server. Secondly, it is tied to the GOP/RNC, show political influence over national concerns.

[Hepburn]

31. This is an excellent point.

And the best one for the Dems legally to harp on with any claim of Exec Privilege. They did NOT protect the privilege ~~ so IMO, it no longer exists. All is fair game.

[merh]

35. Precisely

They violated their office protocol, they circumvented government laws/regs and used servers that were not monitored and secure. The RNC has no executive privilege.

The toughest battle that Congress may have regarding the subpoenas is with Miers subpoena, she has the legitimate right to claim attorney/client privilege as she was counsel to the president. Their communications are in fact privileged and confidential.

Of course, the communications that were handed over to Congress that are from her or to her are no protected, they waived the privilege when they handed over the documents. ;)

The administration that believes itself above the law truly thinks that it is, thus it gave emails that it considered to be of little value and didn't vet them properly. In so doing, it left a gap in time and a trail of slime.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. :evilgrin:

[Hepburn]

36. Another good point in your post ~~

What did they do to preserve the privilege when they turned over the docs? I am not sure of the procedure to protect this privilege, but I am pretty sure ~~ speaking as a lawyer ~~ that conduct can obviously waive a privilege. And if privilege is not asserted, it is also waived.

Another good point you raised, IMO, is that there is NO executive privilege viz the RNC. So, IMO, their conduct alone was a waiver when the WH used the RNC server.

Once waived ~~ the privilege is gone. IMO, this could well be Bush's Watergate ~~ just like when it came out there was a taping system in the Oval Office....say what!?!?!?! That was pretty much the beginning of the end for Richard Nixon.

[merh]

37. that conduct can obviously waive a privilege

What baffles me is why they haven't yet (yet) claimed attorney/client privilege with regards to Miers testimony. Also, how do they think that they can claim "executive privilege" when they offered to allow Miers, Rove, et al to give testimony behind closed doors, not under oath and without transcript? If executive privilege exists, their offer, as you say, waives that privilege.

They waive executive privilege if you promise not to swear the witnesses in and if you promise to not record or transcribe the "private" interviews? I don't think it works that way - to be successful in claiming executive privilege you have to claim it from the get go. No testimony as it is protected by executive privilege.

They tried to be coy politically by saying the president was trying to work with Congress and set the terms which would allow the testimony, but in so making the offer, haven't they in fact waived the executive privilege?

[Hepburn]

38. There is no atty-client privilege with WH counsel.

Now it's real clear why the WH does NOT want Harriet to testify under oath.

John Dean on the issue:

In the second case, In re Lindsey, Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey refused to testify about his knowledge of President Clinton's relationship to Monica Lewinsky, based on attorney-client privilege. Starr sought to compel Lindsey's testimony, and he won again.

This time, Starr persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to follow the Eighth Circuit. The court ruled that exposure of wrongdoing by government lawyers fostered democracy, as "openness in government has always been thought crucial to ensuring that the people remain in control of their government."

Based on these precedents, President Bush has almost certainly been told that the only way he can discuss his potential testimony with a lawyer is by hiring one outside the government.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040604.html

I hate to say it, but: "Thank you, Ken Starr!! Talk about KARMA!

[merh]

39. Don't you just love Karma!

Thanks for the link, now I see that they were trying to call Congress' bluff in the hopes that they would come off as "cooperative" and get the public support that they need to stop the investigation.

It's not going to happen.

This image comes to mind when I think of these events

[Hepburn]

40. IMO, you are correct on what is going on...

...in trying to block the open testimony under oath. Harriet could be a feaking gold mine as to what was discussed. She may be a lawyer, but she is a GOVERNMENT lawyer and the privilege does NOT apply.

I started a separate thread on this under GD/politics because IMO, this is an important point on what is motivating the WH to try and duck open testimony under oath.

[Bucky]

43. And a sloppy attitude toward internal security n sensitive matters

I'm going to love the next two years.

[global1]

32. Check This Out - Private E-Mail Servers......

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/4/135310/0946 .

[Bucky]

42. Best comment at Kos: "...if it's not a WH server, it should be free from claims of Executive Priv"

In the immortal words of Emeril... BAM!!