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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3535)	10/24/2000 5:56:14 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 10042

Gore re-takes lead per CNN tracking poll. 12 point reversal in 3 days. Nader down to 3%. Let's hope this trend continues. Oil money is only dirty when the politician who gets it de-regulates pollution controls and gives the oil industry big tax breaks they don't need. Both things Bush did for the oil business after receiveing a ton of their money. If he wins Bush will do the oil industry's bidding. Bought and paid for.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3535)	10/24/2000 6:14:24 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 10042

From the WSJ Editorial Page today: Godfather of the Internet? The vice president can't hide from the White House's missing e-mails. opinionjournal.com REVIEW & OUTLOOK Godfather of the Internet? The vice president can't hide from the White House's missing e-mails. Tuesday, October 24, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT The Clinton-Gore Administration was conceived in secrecy and coverups. Recall the House and Senate Banking Committee hearings on Whitewater years ago, when a parade of high White House officials testified that their ability to remember much of anything had gone aglimmering, or the famous aide who "lied to my diary." Well, they've got that stonewall about as high as the White House's upper windows by now, perhaps high enough to get away with a truly massive coverup of the White House's missing e-mail traffic--long under subpoena from Congress and various Independent Counsels, but never delivered. Many of the undisclosed e-mails were to and from the Vice President's office, suggesting the possibility, should Mr. Gore win, that he could soon be famous as the Godfather of the Internet. Previous disclosures of e-mails from Vice President Gore's office have established that his aides indeed viewed the infamous Buddhist temple event as a fund-raiser, and that the Vice President himself knew that, despite his denials. The massive effort to deny these e-mails to investigators suggests similar evidence exists. Last week's Travelgate report on Mrs. Clinton by Independent Counsel Robert Ray indicated how missing e-mails have thwarted such investigations. Mr. Ray lamented that the probe took seven years because in part so many "witnesses were uncooperative." For example, Jeff Eller, a deputy White House press secretary, claimed a lack of memory more than 200 times during less than two hours of grand jury testimony. But e-mails belatedly turned over to Mr. Ray in June showed that Mr. Eller and other White House aides knew of the Travel Office takeover a full week beforehand. From the beginning, the White House has claimed that all these missing e-mails are part of a "bureaucratic snafu" whereby its archiving system didn't capture a minimum of 246,000 incoming messages. The White House first learned of the problem in June 1998, but chose not to tell anyone about it for a year and a half. Insight magazine broke the e-mail story this past February, and since then the White House has so perfected its Big Stall that Mr. Ray is actively investigating whether the failure to turn over the e-mails was an attempt to deny his office evidence that could have altered the impeachment debate. All this intrigue is playing out in the D.C. courtroom of Judge Royce Lamberth, which has become a kind of search engine in the missing e-mail story. Judge Lamberth is hearing a Judicial Watch lawsuit that seeks the e-mails as evidence in its lawsuit over the White House's improper holding of 900 FBI files on GOP appointees. And earlier this month, Independent Counsel Ray took the extraordinary step of suggesting that Judge Lamberth take "appropriate action" to discipline the dilatory tactics of the Clinton White House's lawyers. Mr. Ray's office charged that former White House counsel Michelle Peterson had given "inaccurate testimony" that the counsel's office had promptly complied with all subpoenas. Mr. Ray's office says Ms. Peterson hid a key internal memo about Monica Lewinsky for nearly three months and then without explanation slipped it into a stack of 970 pages of documents that responded to a different subpoena from a different court. Ms. Peterson's boss, Lanny Breuer, acknowledged this practice in a letter to the Independent Counsel. "We do not invariably and explicitly identify a recently discovered document to you in our cover letter," Mr. Breuer wrote. In other words, catch us if you can. Incredibly, Mr. Breuer testified last week before Judge Lamberth that his letter must have been written in anger and so didn't reflect the White House's actual practices. For his part, Judge Lamberth has grown impatient with the stalling tactics. He recently suggested that the White House and its outside computer contractor, Northrop Grumman, "let the facts come out" on precisely when they learned of the e-mail problem and the alleged threats White House aides made against Northrop's employees to intimidate them into silence. Phone records show that Northrop Grumman's lawyer, Earl Silbert, called the White House counsel's office about the time Northrop was told of the threats in 1998. Mr. Silbert says he doesn't recall what he discussed with the White House. He and Northrop Grumman have invoked attorney-client privilege to avoid disclosure of his memos on the case, and yesterday told Judge Lamberth they will seek an emergency stay from another court if he moves to release any of the material. What's to hide? Well, the Silbert memos would be important if they show he told the White House about the missing e-mails and the threats in 1998. The White House's claim that it didn't know the full extent of the e-mail problem until after the impeachment had passed would be shattered. When a Justice Department lawyer recently told Judge Lamberth that any suggestion the White House knew all about the e-mails in 1998 was "blown out of proportion," the judge chastised him: "I have some documents in camera, and you had better not get too far out on a limb." Yesterday, Judge Lamberth allowed 14 top Northrop executives to be subpoenaed this week. He may order a special master to take control of the e-mails to ensure a thorough search is done. That, however, would not occur until after the election.