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</A> -Cui Bono?-
http://www.insightmag.com/cgi-bin/ViewNews.cfm?Item=30
INSIGHT News Alert!
Inside the White House Project X
By Paul M. Rodriguez
2/18/00 -- The Insight story about the "lost"
White House e-mails has resurfaced in the news.
Now, congressional and federal investigators are
hot on the trail of an estimated 100,000
electronic notes, but those same sleuths ought to
be looking for the thousands of pages of White
House telephone records also "found" but ignored.
In December 1998 and January 1999 this magazine
reported on the existence of the previously
unknown White House e-mails accidentally turned up
by a subcontractor (see "Trove of `Lost' E-Mails
at White House," Dec. 28, 1998, and "Former Aide
Fights White House on Abuse," Jan. 3). When
informed of the discovery of the e-mails,
including missives from Monica Lewinsky and many
others, White House officials flew into a panic
and quickly put a clamp on the revelation by
effectively classifying the information. So secret
was the existence of this smoking howitzer that
the White House dubbed all work on it "Project X."
Contractors were instructed to remain silent under
penalty of law and an effort was undertaken to
reconstruct the e-mails to determine how they
compared with messages on other White House
computers and whether the newly discovered
electronic evidence had been subpoenaed and, if
so, what vestiges of other copies might have been
turned over to scandal investigators.
A White House official told us in 1998 that, yes,
it appeared that some of the Project X e-mails
were duplicates but that others were new and/or
unknown. The refrain "We'll get back to you" was
played out with finesse, as were assurances
Congress would look into the discovery.
Specifically, Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican
and chairman of the House Government Reform and
Oversight Committee, and Sen. Fred Thompson,
Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee, promised they'd
look into the news alert! scoop and, well, would
get back to us. That was two years ago.
Fast forward to mid-February 2000 and a Washington
Times story on the same lost e-mails. Suddenly, in
a postimpeachment atmosphere, and amid a hot
campaign season, Burton, Thompson and federal
investigators again were promising to go after
those electronic messages. Joe Lockhart, the
adroit White House spokesman, tried to get by with
labeling the story old news, reminding the world
that Insight had broken it in 1998 -- and,
besides, everything requested by the various
investigators had been turned over long ago. Even
President Clinton sang that refrain.
But hold on: news alert! has learned that despite
Insight's clear exposé, neither the Congress, the
Justice Department Campaign Task Force nor the
various independent counsels ever sought to obtain
the telltale e-mails. Moreover, notwithstanding a
companion story reported here in 1998 involving
certain long-distance telephone records, the same
investigating bodies also let those documents slip
through their fingers when only a few were
reviewed by the campaign task force.
Whistle-blowers ask what's going on!
Unlike the e-mails, to which the White House could
delay access for months by claiming they were
insignificant or already turned over to
investigators, the discovery of the long-distance
telephone records cannot be obfuscated. And here's
why: In response to all those subpoenas over the
years by all those investigating bodies, the White
House always maintained that it had no telephone
records in its possession and that it could not
obtain them from the telephone companies because
they routinely destroy such records every 90 days
or so. There was just nothing to turn over in
response to subpoenas.
That is, until news alert! learned of a secret
depository of monthly long-distance telephone
records that date back to January 1992 and forward
to at least December 1998. These records, which
list dates, times, durations, numbers called and
how much each call cost, also include in many
instances the number to which the bill should be
charged. In other words, priceless White House
records exist to inform investigators working on
any number of probes, including campaign-finance
corruption, Travelgate, Filegate and all the other
gates through which the Clinton/Gore team has run.
News alert! recently was told that the G-men never
got their hands on the critical documents. Such
telephone records quickly could establish what
calls were made to Red China deal-doer James Riady
or Webster Hubbell or any number of people
involved in the campaign-finance scandal. Just for
starters. They also could clear up written
testimony or oral depositions about who said what
and when.
Another curious item concerning those e-mails:
news alert! has been told that the system in which
the e-mails were stored was designed as a secret
component to the White House Office Data Base, or
WHODB, by which all incoming and outgoing e-mails
were to be collected "off-campus" to avoid
scrutiny by federal investigators. Multiple
sources who worked with Insight on exposing the
existence of WHODB, dubbed Big Brother, confirmed
to news alert! that such a subsystem was designed
for this very purpose.
Sources did not know for certain whether the
system in which the lost e-mails were found by a
Northrop Grumman contractor is the same system.
"It sure does sound like it, though," said a
well-placed source.
Will congressional and other federal investigators
pursue this, too? We'll get back to you....
Paul M. Rodriguez
Click here to read the original Insight article
from December 1998 :
Looking for Information in All the Wrong Places
by Paul M. Rodriguez
http://www.insightmag.com/img/newsalert.12.28.98.gif
Click here to read Insight's follow-up article
from January 1999 :
Honey Pot of Info Causes a Swarm
by Paul M. Rodriguez
http://www.insightmag.com/img/newsalert.1.11.99.gif
.
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