An internal Department of Justice email dealing with a series of the most controversial aspects of the US attorney firing scandal was deleted by a DOJ official the day after Congress began to address the firings. Three months later, the official told Congressional investigators he had not destroyed any documents or deleted any records relating to the US attorney firings.
This is the first publicly released evidence that individuals directly involved in the plan to fire eight US attorneys have destroyed documents that are of interest to Congressional investigators. This revelation has raised some eyebrows with members of Congress, but officials were unwilling to speak publicly about it. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee did not respond in time for publication.
Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a central coordinator of the US attorney purge, deleted an official email on January 12, 2007. The email was a correspondence between Sampson and the DOJ White House Liaison Monica Goodling that dealt with the controversial appointment of GOP loyalist Tim Griffin to the post of US attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Three months after this email was deleted from Sampson's computer, he was interviewed behind closed doors by Congressional investigators. According to a Senior Congressional Aide with access to the non-public transcript of the interview, Sampson was asked directly if he destroyed documents or emails relating to the US attorney purge. He answered "No." The Congressional aide asked to remain anonymous because the interview transcript has not been made public.
The DOJ did not respond to repeated inquires into this matter. Kyle Sampson's lawyer did not return requests for comment.
Evidence that the email was deleted by Sampson came from the Justice Department's own documents released to Congress. They released a series of documents on June 21 that had previously been withheld. Many of the new documents are copies of emails from Monica Goodling's computer. On page 32 of the email sent, an email from Monica Goodling to Kyle Sampson shows that Sampson deleted an email from Goodling about five-and- a-half hours after it was written. The email system Goodling was using allowed users to track the progress of an email, recording when it was received, opened and deleted. For this particular email, the tracking system report read as follows: "Recipient: Sampson, Kyle. Deleted: 1/12/2007 7:12 PM."
The tracking program for email systems are bullet-proof, according to computer expert Frank Walton, an email systems developer and programmer and former information technology expert for the military contractor Northrop Grumman. "Tracking is what is happening to an email. It is the history of an email. It is not something someone can fake. It is a secure part of the email, meaning that a user cannot alter it," Walton said....
As the President has recently reminded us, punishment of senior officials for perjury and obstruction of justice is way harsh.
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