Sorry. I’m afraid Waxman has me hooked on these damn email documents.
But I wanted to point out a curious bit of timing. I’m working on a mega-timeline, but note this mini-timeline:
January 20, 2006: McDevitt and friends determine that there are gaps where the missing emails should be.
January 23, 2006: Fitzgerald informs Libby’s lawyers "via Telefax and regular mail" that:
In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.
January 23, 2006, 11:18 AM: McDevitt writes Susan Crippen,
Someone needs to fill in some of the blanks.
January 23, 2006, 1:19 PM: Crippen responds,
SIS has "filled in" the blanks.
January 24, 2006: Someone in the White House writes a document claiming to have found the missing emails.
According to a document dated just four days later that was shown to Committee staff, but not provided to them, the White House team recovercd 17,956 e-mails from these individual mailboxes on the backup tape and used these as their basis to search for e-mails responsive to the Special Counsel’s request.
January 31, 2006: Fitzgerald’s letter entered into PACER, alerting the press and DFH bloggers to the missing emails.
February 2, 2006: Addington prints off email for discovery.
February 6, 2006: Fitzgerald receives "missing" emails.
February 11, 2006: Dick shoots an old man in the face.
Okay, okay, I just included Dick’s lawyer-hunting for fun (though I have long believed the revelation of Cheney’s NIE cover story and the missing emails contributed to his carelessness that day).
But does anyone else find it odd that the WH "found" the missing emails the day after Libby’s lawyers learned that news of them would imminently become public?