ALL THE PRESIDENT'S SCANDALS
White House tightens grip on e-mail project
Gore whistle-blower booted from area, as restoration contractor gags
workers
By Paul Sperry
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- The White House has tightened its control over a
court-ordered project to restore hundreds of thousands of
subpoenaed e-mail missing from archives for the offices of the
president and vice president, WorldNetDaily has learned.
White House officials have separated an e-mail whistle-blower
from high-level talks about the project.
And, obeying strict guidelines set by the White House, a project
contractor has gagged its workers, even threatening pink slips
for those who talk.
The moves come as a federal judge, sensing White House
stonewalling, has signaled he may take the project away from the
White House.
"After 20 weeks, the EOP (Executive Office of the President) has
not made one concrete step towards producing any of the
(unarchived) e-mail," U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth scolded
lawyers for the White House in an opinion filed earlier this
week.
Lamberth has set a fact-finding hearing for Thursday to determine
the best way to restore and search the e-mail. He says he'll
rule after the hearing on government watchdog Judicial Watch's
request for a "special master" to handle the project.
White House insiders say e-mail whistle-blower Howard "Chip"
Sparks has been "moved out" of his office on the fifth floor of
the New Executive Office Building. His office is within earshot
of meetings between White House officials and contractors on the
e-mail restoration project.
He was recently ordered to pack up his office and move to "the
other end of the wing," one source said. Officials don't want
him to "overhear their plans."
Sparks is the career White House computer network specialist who
exposed problems with Vice President Al Gore's e-mail
records-keeping. He said in a sworn affidavit that former Gore
aide Mike Gill, known as the "Mad Deleter," told him and other
computer support personnel to "get lost" when they offered help.
At least a year's worth of Gore's e-mail is permanently lost.
Meanwhile, the private Virginia contractor the White House hired
to restore the trove of e-mail has threatened to sack workers on
the "sensitive" project if they talk about it outside the job.
A project worker says that the head of SRA International Inc.
warned him and other employees that they would be "fired" if they
didn 't keep quiet.
Asked about it, an SRA executive insists no one has been
threatened.
"We are not Neanderthals," said Renny DiPentima, president of SRA
government-sector projects. "We do not go around firing people."
He admitted, though, that technicians have been warned about the
"sensitivity" of the project. He says the White House's contract
sets strict confidentiality rules.
"At our meetings, we've made it absolutely, perfectly clear the
sensitivity of this job," he told WorldNetDaily.
SRA chief executive Ernst Volgenau also has attended the
meetings, DiPentima confirmed.
How would the company deal with a worker who talked about the
project outside the job?
"If someone leaked information, we would probably have to let
them go," DiPentima conceded.
As first reported in WorldNetDaily, SRA employs two former White
House officials who had close contact with political appointees
accused of threatening workers and other contractors with jail if
they talked about e-mail gaps. The problem was so secret the
White House called it "Project X."
Dotti Cleal and John Dankowski both joined SRA within the past 10
months. DiPentima assured that they are being kept off the
e-mail restoration job.
"John and Dotti are a million miles away from this project," he
said. "I would never let them near it."
Another Clinton administration official, Mary Ellen Condon,
recently joined SRA. She managed the Justice Department's
computer system. But she's not involved in the White House
project, either, DiPentima said.
All three are working on other government-sector projects, he
says. Cleal on Navy projects, Dankowski on business development
and Condon on "critical-infrastructure protection."
Why is SRA so far behind schedule after nearly five months on the
job?
DiPentima explains the tape-copying process is slowing things
down.
Before workers can restore the e-mail back-up tapes, they have to
make two sets of copies of the originals. One they'll use to
reformat the data to perform keyword searches for relevant
information under subpoena by various criminal investigators.
The other they'll put under "lock and key," along with the
original.
There are some 3,400 back-up tapes.
The White House insists on copying them in large batches, or not
at all, but it says it can't do that until it gets new equipment.
It says existing equipment would allow it to copy only two tapes
a day.
Lamberth called the White House's logic "preposterous," noting
that about 200 tapes could have been ready for searching by now.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the White House is
stalling in an attempt to "push the production of evidence past
the November election."
Several White House insiders say the unarchived e-mail contain
messages related to various White House scandals, including the
Lewinsky impeachment case, Filegate, Democratic National
Committee trade junkets and Chinagate. The trove may also
contain e-mail related to the Project X cover-up.
DiPentima insists no one's stalling.
In fact, he says he's "added technical people" to the job to move
it along. He says 20 SRA employees are now assigned to the
project -- and they'll stay with it until it's done.
"I'm not taking anyone off this project," he said.
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
=================================================================
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
