On the trail of email

The White House is still claiming the loss of four years worth of Rove's emails was inadvertent and say they have their forensic team working on it. Frankly I don't see why we should trust their forensics team any more than we should trust them, which is not at all. Meanwhile, the oversight committees are trying to get the White House to produce the existing RNC emails along with other White House documents and continue to seek sworn testimony from Rove and other high ranking officials.

White House counsel, Fred Fielding sent his answer in a letter. Short version: Go fuck yourselves. It appears the White House intends to evoke executive privilege on even the emails held by the ostensibly outside agent, the RNC. Mark Kleiman has the answer to that.

So it seems to me that Fielding is bluffing, and that Waxman, Leahy, Schumer, Conyers, and Martinez should stand pat and call. No more negotiations. Testimony now, documents now, or issue and enforce those subpoenas.

As an extra-special bonus, the order for the Sergeants-at-Arms to make arrests or seize documents needs to be voted by the full chamber. I don't know whether the Senate rules allow that motion to be filibustered. But that means that all of the Republicans on the Hill would have to put themselves on record as supporting the cover-up or opposing it. Voting "Yes" would seriously threaten any Republican's standing within the party, and put him or her at risk of wing-nut primary challenges. Voting "No," for a Senator or Representative from a competitive state or district, might well mean defeat a year from November. Now there's a "wedge issue," if you like.

Kleiman agrees that even the servers can legally be seized. I've been calling for Leahy to get a move on for days now, but he doesn't listen to me. Maybe he'll listen to Kleiman.