Computergate: I call BULLSHIT

The White House has officially responded to questions about the use of private RNC email accounts used by White House staff.

White House spokesman David Almacy said the outside e-mail accounts were set up to allow legitimate political activities to be conducted by appropriate staff members without using White House accounts, which would be illegal under the Hatch Act. "It was specifically set up that way so that people weren't using their official accounts for political activities," he said. Only certain White House staff members have such outside accounts, including those who regularly communicate with outside political groups, he said.

BULLSHIT.

How often do I use such terminology? Not often. But what other phrase can we use in this instance?

Problem numero uno: The Hatch Act comes into play if anyone in the WH does partisan political business. It's not purely a matter of who uses which email account. It's also a matter of whether you've parked your buns on a chair inside the White House while doing party work on the taxpayers' dime.

Problem numero two-o: The RNC email accounts were used for official business! That's how this scandal first came to light. These accounts popped up in communications pertinent to the U.S. Attorney purge.

Here's a snippet from Congressman Waxman's latest letter to Sue Ralston, the Karl Rove aide feeding info to the notorious crook Jack Abramoff:

The September report left a number of questions unanswered, including whether White House officials reimbursed Mr. Abramoff for tickets and meals as required by law; whether White House officials took actions that benefited Mr. Abramoff and his clients as described in the e-mails; and why White House officials used Republican National Committee and other non-governmental e-mail accounts to communicate with Mr. Abramoff and his associates about official government business.

(Emphasis added.) This excellent piece in Truthout details many instances of how private email servers were used to do an end-run around history.

The White House claims that the emails routed through the RNC servers are archived. But would a subpoena bring forth a complete record? Or are we forced to trust the same people who just now tried to feed us bullshit?

(Sorry if my use of a profanity offended some readers or caused problems with filters. Sometimes you just gotta use the only word that fits the sitch.)