The hidden scandal within the prosecutor purge

Written and researched by Joseph Hughes of Hughes for America and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister

Between the thousand-page document dumps, somewhat rejuvenated press corps and always up-to-the-second reporting from the progressive blogosphere, the prosecutor purge scandal is exploding at a seemingly exponential rate. Every hour, the story grows in new and different directions, and now clearly threatens the job security of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others in the Department of Justice. Further, it now appears as though the scandal's tentacles reach into the uppermost echelons of the Bush White House, including, as recent administration controversies almost always do, Karl Rove. While the endgame of this saga is far from decided, what is already apparent is that a vital facet of the story -- the administration's seeming unwillingness to comply with both the law and a fundamental cornerstone of our American system -- is in danger of being lost in the shuffle of the overarching stampede. And, if we can no longer expect our government's top officials -- including the top official, the president -- to obey the law and adhere to the bedrock standard of open government, then the questions about whether or not we still live in a democracy are no longer so far-fetched.

Here, in concise a listing as possible, is what we now know:1. President Bush does not use e-mail. Our evidence for this comes both from the president himself, as well as an exchange between George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush and Greta Van Susteren. The president, as seen in this telling video, said, of e-mail: "I tend not to e-mail -- not only tend not to e-mail, I don't e-mail, uh, because of, uh, the different record requests that could happen to a president. I don't want to receive e-mails, 'cause, you know, there's no telling what somebody would e-mail me and it would show up as, uh, you know, part of some kind of a story that -- and I wouldn't be able to say, 'Well, I didn't read the e-mail' -- 'But I sent it your address; how can you say you didn't?' So, in other words, I'm very cautious about e-mailing." As mentioned, the president's father and mother have spoken about his avoidance of e-mail as well:

H.W. BUSH: ... I think it's too bad in a way that e-mail will detract from the historical record of presidents. I don't think that the President Bush uses e-mail.

BARBARA BUSH: He doesn't.

H.W. BUSH: You worry about it. People are going to subpoena the email records and we are going to, you know, you've gotta prove that you were telling the truth and all this stuff. I mean, it's gotten so adversarial that it's ugly.

2. Gonzales reportedly does not use e-mail. The evidence for this has come via reporting on the prosecutor purge and the related document dumps. Per an ABC News story, we see this: "The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales' former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised."

3. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, at least as of March of 2004, does not use e-mail. From an interview the then-National Security Advisor gave to wire and print journalists, we see this: "That's how I do business. I don't use e-mail for business. I think it's intemperate, and I don't communicate by e-mail." Curiously, however, in the same response, Rice said, "I did have to send Dick [Clarke] two e-mails telling him, come to my staff meetings, because he kept being too busy. I finally told him that it was important that he not be too busy." If that, too, is true and Rice herself -- though she had just told reporters that she didn't "use e-mail for business" -- did indeed e-mail Richard Clarke, this suggests a selective use of e-mail for business that, to be sure, is also suspicious.