What is this latest Clinton-Gore Administration scandal called “e-mailgate” all about? The government contractor responsible for White House e-mail communications discovered a “glitch” in late 1998 that would not allow certain messages to be archived, or stored for retrieval, as required by law. It is uncertain whether this was done purposely to “hide” certain material.

The White House Office of Administration wrote a memo to officials who were to testify to Congress about Administration scandals informing them that the problem prevented the messages from being screened to determine if they concerned the illegally obtained FBI files, Al Gore's money-laundering visit to the Buddhist Temple, the sale of seats on foreign trade mission aircraft — or any of the other alleged administration improprieties. The messages had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury and three congressional committees.

White House officials solicited a bid from the contractor in October 1998 to fix the problem, but no further action was taken until February 1999, when one official dismissed the problem with the admonition “let sleeping dogs lie.” Meanwhile, depositions indicate that the contractor team had been told by White House officials to say nothing to anyone about the missing messages, and reportedly said that the contractors would be “thrown in jail” if they disclosed the oversight.

The administration further tried to hide the content of these communications by telling the contractors that they were “classified” — a term indicating national security concerns.

The problem went unreported until the Washington Times became aware of the situation in February of this year. White House officials then backpedaled, denying they had threatened the contractors and adding, “We have seen no documents that in any way suggest that the e-mail problem was hidden from Congress.”

Will anything come of it? Probably not. The White House now says that the e-mail recovery effort probably will take until late November. Its probably just an odd coincidence that the election is in early November. And if Congress allows the White House to see the e-mails first, any evidence of wrongdoing will surely be stifled.

Further, this Congress has continually backed down rather than hold this administration accountable. Clinton-Gore, and their toady in the Justice Department, Janet Reno, simply declare that the American people want to “put it behind us and move on.” That has a nice ring to it — putting Bill Clinton and Al Gore's legacy of lies and decade of deceit behind us and moving on with a new administration.

William Fielder

Peachtree City

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