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Skriven 2007-04-13 23:30:58 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0704136) for Fri, 2007 Apr 13
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Press Briefing by Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary April 13, 2007

Press Briefing by Dana Perino White House Conference Center Briefing Room

˙ Video (Windows) ˙˙Press Briefings
˙˙Audio


1:41 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: Good afternoon. Happy Friday. Okay, I don't have anything to
announce. I'll just go to questions.

Q Have you been able to determine why Karl Rove's ability to delete emails
was --

MS. PERINO: No, not between the gaggle and now, I haven't.

Q Okay. How about the list of the 22 officials; are you ready to release
that?

MS. PERINO: No, but we've taken it under consideration. No, I don't have
that ready yet, but we are consulting -- obviously, we're in communication
with the committee, meaning the House Judiciary Committee, as well as the
RNC general counsel. And so a lot of these things are being discussed at
that level. And so in between 10 a.m. and now I wasn't able to get a
conclusion.

Q Do you know whether White House officials were able to delete their own
emails even after this archival policy went into effect?

MS. PERINO: White House officials -- you mean somebody like myself?

Q Who had the RNC accounts.

MS. PERINO: If they could have deleted their own emails --

Q After the 2005 archive provision went into effect. Did they retain the
ability?

MS. PERINO: I believe that that would have been within the realm of
possibility, but I don't know of anybody that -- again, we don't know of
anybody that actually was doing that, to my knowledge, and we do not have
any indication that there was any basis to conclude that there was any
wrongdoing, intentional wrongdoing in the use of the RNC emails. You're
talking about the double-delete function, where you can delete your deleted
files?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: I don't know.

Q Dana, is there a limit to the mailbox size with the RNC accounts? Do you
know that level of detail, whether you'd have to delete at some point or
you couldn't get any more emails?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I know that oftentimes our computers can slow
down, but we have an automatic archiving system that comes through and
cleans it up for us. And all of the emails, except for the ones -- the very
small slice of the universe I've told you about that have the GWB accounts
-- any email that touches any part of an EOP or White House server or
computer, those are automatically preserved.

Q Dana, Democrats are concerned that perhaps these accounts were used in
order to keep information -- harder to be under public scrutiny, harder to
find through discovery, things like that. They're not satisfied that these
emails can't be retrieved. What's your --

MS. PERINO: I would caution against anyone making any broad, sweeping
conclusions. What we have done is come forward to talk about the small
slice of universe -- small slice of the universe of the emails that we've
identified that have the potential to possibly not be there. And, again, I
think that one of the things that's difficult is the things that we don't
know. We don't know them, but we're trying to find them out. And there are
ways that you can retrieve any emails that are potentially lost. And we are
beginning conversations with outside consultants, forensic consultants who
could tell us the best way to do that, the best way to retrieve those. But,
again, I would stress to you that we have seen no basis to conclude that
there was any intentional wrongdoing with the use of these emails.

Q But this was a problem, a mistake.

MS. PERINO: I said it yesterday, I think I said it concisely.

Q Dana, if I could follow. We have mentioned before the group called
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. They issued this
report, and they are saying their analysis shows that between March
2003-October 2005, there were hundreds of days in which emails were missing
-- this being in the White House system, not the RNC -- and that this
equated -- it was estimated that roughly over 5 million email messages were
missing.

MS. PERINO: I don't know if that group actually has -- I don't know how
they do an analysis on an internal White House system. But I did check it
out, and we are in communication with the Office of Administration to see
if there are days or partial days when there were emails that would have
gone missing. And in terms of -- "missing" is a word that -- maybe
misplaced, or not necessarily lost forever. I think there are backup tapes,
there are different ways in order to go back and find emails.

And in talking with them and with the Counsel's Office, there is no
indication that anyone who is working on a server or in terms of technical
capability that would be able to look at a server, clean up a server, or,
in terms of when we converted from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook if
there would have been any potential loss there, that there was any
intentional loss of any document. I think that those folks take those jobs
very seriously and endeavor to make sure that all of the records are
preserved for the Presidential Records Act, as well as the Federal Records
Act.

Q So, just to be clear, are you taking issue with their conclusions, or are
you just saying --

MS. PERINO: I'm not taking issue with their conclusions at this point.
We're checking into them. And, again, there's 1,700 people in the Executive
Office of the President. I don't know how -- we'll try to find out how many
emails a day are sent with that many people. I can assure you it's a high
number. But I also will tell you that the technical folks that we've spoken
to in the preliminary discussions was that if there had been an inadvertent
human error or a technical problem where there were days where emails might
have been misplaced, that either, one -- well, one, it wouldn't have been
intentional; and, two, there are ways that we can try to gather those if
need be.

Think about it. I mean, there are sometimes -- and I don't have a list of
the days with me -- but if it was a Saturday or a Sunday, oftentimes
because we have such a large organization that works 24/7, but mostly
Monday through Friday, if they do any maintenance on our servers, just like
in your organizations, they often do it on times when it's slow -- slow
periods. And so if they are looking at those days -- we just need to do a
little bit more work before I can answer definitively.

Q So, to your knowledge, there's no problem within the White House email
system, in terms of messages or emails that have been deleted? Or at this
point, you just don't know?

MS. PERINO: No, what I'm saying is that -- the way that the system is set
up, and the way to comply with the Presidential Records Act is that any
email that goes to or from a White House account, an EOP account that you
all email us on, those are automatically preserved. Their question was
specific not to GWB emails but to White House account emails, and their
question is -- the allegations that there could be days, whole days
missing.

And what I'm saying is, we're looking into that. But I would caution people
from making any broad conclusions about that, for the reasons I've stated
-- which is, there's no indication that that would have been intentional,
and there are ways that you can find missing emails. And that's one of the
ways that they do that. I'm not a technical expert, but they have the
expertise on that.

Q Just a quick follow here. They alleged that White House Counsel Harriet
Miers was informed of this problem at the time, these missing emails, and
that they -- that she didn't do anything about it or the White House didn't
do anything about it. Are you aware of that, or --

MS. PERINO: I haven't spoken to Harriet. Obviously, she's no longer working
here. But we are -- Scott Stanzel and I are working to find as much
information as possible, and we're talking to the Office of Administration.
Remember, sometimes -- we don't have the same personnel, necessarily, that
we had three or four years ago. So we're working to get the answers for
you.

Q Dana, can we go back broadly for just one moment?

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q You've had a change of policy here. Why?

MS. PERINO: Well, as I said, this -- now stepping back away from that
particular problem on EOP emails and talking about, specifically about GWB
RNC-hosted accounts, out of an abundance of caution at the beginning of the
administration, there were two basic notices, in terms of policy, on this
issue. One was, official White House business should be done on official
White House accounts.

The second one was -- and it was much more extensive -- how an individual
who has responsibilities in both the political and the official worlds
would avoid violating the Hatch Act. And that was very explicit, and the
Hatch Act says you cannot use a government-issued computer or any sort of
government-issued equipment, which is paid for by taxpayer dollars, to do
any sort of political business. And so out of an abundance of caution, and
because people were concerned about violating the Hatch Act, and because of
convenience, in terms of managing multiple devices, as the BlackBerrys
became more ubiquitous, the policy wasn't always followed correctly.

And so we decided that the best thing to do was to let you know that, and
to, secondly, have a new policy, one that makes it much more clear and
gives the employee much more clear guidance. There was a failing both on
not having a clear guidance, not having good management or overseeing of
the issue, and then individuals not following through on the guidance.

Again, I think it was more -- I don't think it was intentional, and there's
no indication that there was anything improper or improper use of these RNC
emails. But it is better now to have a clearer policy in which people know
exactly where the lines are, and if they have questions about whether they
fall in the gray area and where the line is, the Counsel's Office has let
them know that their door is open and that they're happy to help them make
those judgments.

Q Could you enunciate what that policy is and when it went into effect?

MS. PERINO: It was recently, only in the last couple weeks or so, I think.

Q And what is that policy?

MS. PERINO: I think it's what I've just described to you, which is that you
still need -- that White House business still needs to be done on White
House official accounts; political -- I see your point -- political affairs
business needs to be done on your RNC account. We want to make sure that
people aren't using government-sponsored -- or government-paid-for
equipment to do political business, but that, out of an abundance of
wanting to make sure we're complying with the Presidential Records Act,
that you should figure out a way to preserve those documents, so either by
printing them out or saving them in some way on your computer or CC-ing
yourself so that if, in the future, at any time the Counsel's Office needs
to review those documents, they are available.

Q Dana, I'm unclear on -- you said the policy wasn't always followed
before. But then is there an indication of wrongdoing there, and violation
of the Hatch Act?

MS. PERINO: I think the way to describe it would be that there's no
indication that anyone was intentionally not following the policy. I think
that the policy wasn't very clear, and that people needed a clearer policy.
And especially because technology changed pretty rapidly. I think people at
the White House -- and I don't know about you all -- but we didn't have
access to BlackBerrys until well after -- right around after September
11th. And then at that point, it was only a very few people. And now it's
much more widespread.

Q Are you certain there was no violation of the Hatch Act? I mean, you just
said the policy wasn't always followed. So what does that mean, exactly?

MS. PERINO: I don't know of anybody that violated the Hatch Act.

Q Whether it was intentional or not --

MS. PERINO: I don't know of anyone that violated the Hatch Act or would
have intentionally violated the Hatch Act.

Q Dana, just following up on that, two questions. First, at the outset of
the administration you had this policy. Were there ethics trainings? Was it
just a written policy that was distributed? How was the policy communicated
to your staff?

MS. PERINO: I've worked here a long time; I can't remember. I do know that
we get a written policy. I do know that -- and there is ethics training for
everyone. I can't remember specifically how this was described in that
ethics training.

Q And then you said -- actually, three questions. You said there wasn't
enough oversight of the policy. Whose job is it to oversee that people were
adhering to this policy? Who fell down on the job?

MS. PERINO: That's a good question. I don't specifically know. I think it
was more a definition of senior staff, senior management.

Q And then with respect to Karl, Henry Waxman, after his meeting with the
RNC, or his aide's meeting with the RNC lawyer yesterday, wrote a letter
stating that the committee had, in 2005, adopted a policy specifically
aimed at Karl Rove, that precluded him from manually deleting his emails
from the RNC server. Why did the RNC need a special policy for Karl Rove?

MS. PERINO: As I said this morning, there are ongoing discussions between
our Counsel's Office and the RNC general counsel, and it's just not
something I'm able to answer right now. I understand that you want the
answer, I just don't have it for you.

Go ahead, Holly.

Q When you talk about this guidance at the beginning of the administration,
our understanding is that Gonzales, when he was in the White House
Counsel's Office, he issued some guidance on this. Is that true, and can
you release that guidance?

MS. PERINO: Can I look into it?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: It would follow that as Counsel to the President and in charge
of the ethics counsel -- that's not illogical, but I need to check.

Q Can that be released, so we could actually see what was --

MS. PERINO: We typically have not released internal White House documents,
but I'll take a look.

Q The thing is, since you're saying it was unclear, it was confusing, that
way we could see for ourselves, and judge it.

MS. PERINO: Yes. Go ahead, John.

Q Have you read or been briefed on the letter from Waxman to Gonzales?

MS. PERINO: I have read the letter.

Q Okay, because at the end it seems to indicate that Rove's email
capabilities were changed -- I'm sorry, I don't have the specific language
in front of me -- but it seems to indicate that his email capabilities were
changed because of an investigation. There's some mention of an
investigation.

MS. PERINO: This follows within what Sheryl was asking about, and it's just
not something I can answer right now.

Q Do you think that the increased focus on Karl Rove's

email and possibly his emails being missing might give more ammunition to
Democrats who want to see him brought up to testify?

MS. PERINO: My experience has been that any time Karl Rove's name is
mentioned, it adds to the ammunition, regardless of merit.

Q Do you think it has merit?

MS. PERINO: No comment. Go ahead, Peter.

Q Following up on a question from yesterday, were you able to determine who
determined that the emails were missing and how this was determined?

MS. PERINO: Broadly but not specifically, in terms of the Counsel's Office
review. I think that's when they realized that that -- remember, the
Justice Department has been working to be responsive to the Congress,
providing the documents that they ask for. And in one of those documents it
showed that a White House employee had sent an email to the Justice
Department, and it was from a GWB account. And that's what raised a
question about it. There was nothing improper about using that account, but
that's where it initiated. And so I think that from there, that's where
they started looking into it more.

Q So someone went back and looked into that and found that it and others
were missing, is that what you're saying?

MS. PERINO: Well, I'm not saying that anyone said that they were missing.
The question is, is there a potential that some could have been lost. And,
yes, there is a potential that some could have been lost, but we don't have
a definition in terms of that universe or an answer specifically on that,
until we are able to talk more about the forensics.

Q You've been talking about so many policies today and in the other
briefing. Just to try to clarify, you said the policy wasn't clear, the
policy was not always followed correctly. Which policy or policies are you
talking about?

MS. PERINO: Just specifically about -- the example that I can give you is
that from the White House manual that I've looked at, there is one
paragraph explaining -- it's a short paragraph explaining that you should
do White House official business on your White House official account. And
then when you get to the part about how to avoid violating the Hatch Act,
there's two pages of very explicit instruction. That's why I say that that
policy was a little bit more clear.

Q And that's been sharpened now?

MS. PERINO: Yes. Go ahead, Alexis.

Q Dana, I want to go back in time, related to what Sheryl was asking. When
the White House Counsel told the White House employees to be in full
compliance with the subpoenas and requests for information in the Plame
investigation, for example, did the Counsel's Office, with knowledge of the
RNC accounts -- which the counsel did have -- instruct or inform the RNC
that the White House officials should all be responsive to the subpoenas,
in relation to their RNC accounts?

MS. PERINO: Going back to the Plame investigation?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: I don't -- I don't know the answer to that, and to avoid --

Q Can you check on that, and whether any information was then transferred
from the RNC to the White House and then the White House to the
investigators?

MS. PERINO: I will check into it and I'll see what we can say.

Q And then the second question I have is, currently now the White House
network system has a pop-up message when or if employees try to delete
something, that says, you can't delete, you're in violation of the
blah-blah-blah law.

MS. PERINO: I must not have ever violated it, because it's never popped up
on my computer. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen it.

Q Okay, so you've never seen it. My question is, is the new policy now
installing that sort of message in any way on the RNC accounts?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of, but, again, I've never seen such a
message, so I'll have to check into it.

Let me go to Suzanne, and then I'll go to the back again.

Q Dana, you keep saying that there's no indication that anybody willfully
or intentionally misused the email system. What is that based on? Is the
White House conducting interviews with the 22 people who had double
accounts or --

MS. PERINO: I'll decline to talk about the internal review that we have
that is ongoing, but I feel pretty confident in the source that I talked to
that we are able to say that there is no basis to say that anyone was
improperly and intentionally misusing one of the accounts that they were
provided to avoid violating the Hatch Act. There's just no -- there's no
indication of that.

And that's why I encourage people to not make any broad, sweeping
conclusions about this, and to understand that our position has been, let's
let people know that we think we had a problem, we're going to fix the
problem and we're going to be working with the committee, with the RNC and
then the House Judiciary Committee in their inquiry.

Q So it's fair to say that at least those 22 people have been approached in
some way by the White House, through your investigation, and you've been
reassured that their intentions were not --

MS. PERINO: Since I don't know that -- I don't know specifically if that's
true about all 22 people. Let me check into it.

Q Karl Rove, perhaps?

MS. PERINO: I think he's aware. He's aware.

Goyal.

Q Two quick questions. One, if President has been informed or briefed on
the situation in Bangladesh? Because there's a new army man and he has
arrested and charged the two former --

MS. PERINO: I don't know. But I'll check into it.

Q And, second, how is our friend, dear friend, Tony Snow doing? And we pray
for him.

MS. PERINO: Tony is doing really, really well. So he'd be happy to know
you're thinking of him.

Go ahead, Joanie.

Q Does the President think that Paul Wolfowitz should remain President of
the World Bank, given the controversy?

MS. PERINO: The President has full confidence in Paul Wolfowitz. He's done
a remarkable job at the World Bank, where they are working to lift people
up out of poverty from around the world. He's apologized for the matter,
and his board is undergoing an internal review. And we expect him to remain
as World Bank President -- he has the President's support. But for more
detail and questions I would have to refer you over to the World Bank, who
is conducting that independent review.

I'll go to Mark, and then I'll do Les.

Q Next week's schedule, Dana, as you described it to us as war on terrorism
speeches Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, if I've got my days right this
time.

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q Is this all a continuation of the Iraq supplemental debate, or is it
something beyond that?

MS. PERINO: You can be sure that there's going to be discussion about the
Iraq war supplemental debate. Remember, Wednesday is when we have the
members coming down, the bipartisan, bicameral leadership on Wednesday. But
the President, when he goes to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum and make a statement there, he will not be talking about the Iraq
war supplemental. That will be different type of remarks. And then we'll
travel the next two days.

Q But he will in Ohio and Michigan?

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q What time is the --

MS. PERINO: It's in the afternoon, mid-afternoon.

Les.

Q Thank you very much, Dana. If I could follow up this question. Page one
of this morning's New York Times reports that Mr. Wolfowitz's tenure as
President of the World Bank was, "thrown into turmoil by disclosure that he
helped arrange a pay raise for his companion, Shaha Riza, for which he was
greeted with, 'booing, cat calls, and cries for his resignation by staff
members.'" And I have two questions. Does the President believe it was
right or wrong for Mr. Wolfowitz to do this for what the Times terms "his
companion"?

MS. PERINO: As I said, the President apologized for the matter. He's taken
full responsibility for it. I'm sorry, Paul Wolfowitz apologized for the
matter, and has talked to his board about it, and there's a review
underway.

Q What definition of this word, "companion," can the public conclude, other
than mistress? Does the President believe that people he nominated to such
posts --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to go there, Les -- not going to do it.

Q -- a mistress, rather than getting married?

MS. PERINO: Not going to do it. Thanks for trying to push the envelope, but
not going to do it.

Q You'd like to run away from that?

MS. PERINO: Kelly, go ahead.

Q I just want to go back one more time. You've talked about not finding any
indication of wrongful intent. But there were employees who used their RNC
accounts for official government business, isn't that what you were --

MS. PERINO: I think that there were probably instances of that, but I think
that was probably either out of an abundance of caution, or because of
convenience. As I said, you're managing multiple email accounts, and plus
we live in a world where we work 24/7. And I think that, again, there was
no willful intention, but that there is a possibility that because you're
using multiple accounts and trying to juggle that, that that was a problem.
That's why we're working to fix it.

Q Out of an abundance of caution they used their RNC accounts to do
official business?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that when people have -- I think there are gray
areas -- when they feel that there was a gray area that possibly they erred
on the wrong side of it. I haven't seen copies of these emails, where they
would -- where these were described.

Q Can you talk about what gray area would be?

Q It wasn't discussing the firing of federal prosecutors? That clearly is
official business, is it not?

Q Or is it politics?

MS. PERINO: Well, I guess that is one of the questions that's before us in
the U.S. attorney matter. I'm going to decline to comment on that specific
question. Let me take it back to the Counsel's Office and see what I can
say.

Q Is the President meeting with any potential candidates for this war czar
position this weekend?

MS. PERINO: No. Steve Hadley is -- he hasn't even narrowed the list down,
so he hasn't sent anyone to the President yet.

Q And he won't this weekend?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of, no. I'm going to do one more in the back
-- go ahead.

Q Regarding the bombing in the Iraqi parliament, is there any new
information as to how that occurred, and where was the lapse in security?

MS. PERINO: No, we don't have an update yet. Dr. Al-Dabbagh was here this
morning, the press secretary for the government of Iraq. I was thrilled to
have him here; I hope that you guys enjoyed it, as well. But right now we
don't have any update, but if we get some over the weekend, we'll let you
know.

Q One more topic, Dana. Governor Corzine was in a very serious accident,
and it's been reported that he was not wearing a seat belt. Does the
President wear a seat belt when he is in motorcades?

MS. PERINO: You know, I've never been with him in the limo to have personal
knowledge of that, so we'll see if we can ask.

Q Thank you.

END 2:03 P.M. EDT
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