The new session of Congress convenes today.  Via Glenn Thrush at Politico, we learn that new rules being enacted today insure the continuation of the lawsuits brought to compel testimony of top Bush administration officials, Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten.  CREW filed an amicus brief in support of the House Judiciary Committee's effort to compel that testimony: 

Republicans are up in arms about the Democrats' scrapping of committee term limits and rules changes that will weaken the minority's ability to block bills.

But our Patrick O'Connor points out that they ain't complaining (yet) about a lower-profile provision calling for the continuation of lawsuits against Bush administration officials Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten.

In May, the House Judiciary Committee, joined by a coalition of former U.S. attorneys, sued to enforce subpoenas requiring Miers and Bolten to testify about their actions in the hiring and firing of federal prosecutors. President Bush had instructed both to defy the call to appear.

We learned today that CREW has survived an effort to dismiss our case against the Bush administration over missing White House emails. DC District Court Judge Henry Kennedy upheld lawsuits brought by CREW and the National Security Archive challenging the White House’s failure to properly store and recover millions of emails.  Background on the case, which we filed in , can be found here.

CREW's Melanie Sloan issued this statement:

The Court has rejected the administration’s argument and upheld CREW’s right to sue the White House for failing to comply with the Federal Records Act. The White House, which values secrecy above nearly all else, finally will be held accountable for the millions of missing emails. This is a huge victory for government transparency and the American people.

More from the Wall Street Journal:

A federal judge on Monday ruled against the Bush administration in a court battle over the White House's problem-plagued email system.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy said two private groups may pursue their case as they press the administration to recover millions of possibly missing electronic messages.

Judge Kennedy rejected the government's request to throw out the lawsuits filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.

The Bush administration had argued that the courts didn't have the power to order the White House to retrieve any missing emails.

A document obtained by the Associated Press in August says the White House is missing as many as 225 days of email dating back to 2003.

The nine-page outline of the White House's email problems invites companies to bid on a project to recover the missing electronic messages. The White House hasn't said whether it has hired a contractor.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan called the ruling "a clear victory for the American people. The Executive Office of the President does have to answer for the missing email."

CREW has sued to obtain the records of Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House. The Hill is reporting on this development:

The Secret Service has 18 days to hand over White House visitor logs detailing disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s visits, according to Judicial Watch, a public interest legal group. 

Judicial Watch on Thursday announced that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier in the week ruled against the Secret Service motion to dismiss the group’s open-records requests. The court’s Tuesday decision ordered the agency to finish processing the requests and provide all non-exempt records within 20 days of the court order.

For someone who claims to be a reformer and promises to change the ways of Washington, Sarah Palin has sure started off on the wrong foot.  Palin's email practices as governor of Alaska are strikingly similar to the email practices of the White House.

Alaska law, like federal law, requires all state agencies -- which includes the Governor’s Office -- to preserve public records that adequately document how they function do the business of the state.  AS 40.21.060.  Alaska law also requires each state agency to establish a records management program with controls over the creation, maintenance and use of records used in the conduct of current business, again mirroring the federal law.  And, like its federal counterpart, Alaska law defines “records” as including emails, which must be preserved as if they were paper records.

For Sarah Palin and her office this means that even if they are free to use outside email accounts to conduct state business -- which is far from clear -- they must still preserve those emails as public records documenting their functions, policies, decisions, etc.  But we know from emails that have leaked to the public that Sarah and her office are using outside email accounts precisely to avoid record preservation obligations.  Sound familiar?  It wasn’t that long ago we learned that top White House officials, including Karl Rove, were similarly using outside email accounts -- in their case accounts tied to the RNC -- to conduct government business but avoid leaving a paper trail.

Today, CREW released a fact sheet, PALIN ADMINISTRATION NOT SO OPEN OR TRANSPARENT AFTER ALL.  We're posting the full document below and the accompanying documents can be found here.   It's striking how closely the Palin administration follows the Bush administration's approach to transparency.  

PALIN ADMINISTRATION NOT SO OPEN OR TRANSPARENT AFTER ALL

Governor Sarah Palin campaigned in 2006 on the promise to “open the door wide to transparent and accountable government.”

FACTS

The Alaska Attorney General issued an opinion on August 21, 2008 concluding that state employees have a right to privacy while using state-issued communication equipment shortly after it was revealed that Governor Palin and her staff used their state-issued blackberrys and computers for communications related to Governor Palin’s efforts to have her former brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten, fired. [read Alaska AG opinion here]

This is a radical departure from Alaska’s previous position that employees have no expectation of privacy in government email. [read AK State Policy Regarding Personal Use of State Office Technologies here]

When confronted with Governor Palin’s abandonment of her promise to have an open and transparent government, her communication director claimed that commitment related only to “the stranded gas act versus the AGIA concept under Governor Palin.” (A gas pipeline development issue) [listen to communications director Bill McAllister on the Palin administration’s view of transparency here]

A review of the State of Alaska’s website, however, reveals that the phrase “open and transparent” is used repeatedly in regard to a wide variety of government initiatives

BUSH ADMINISTRATION COMPARISON

Governor Palin mirrors the Bush administration’s approach to transparency.

• When confronted with a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for documents from the White House Office of Administration (“OA”) that relate to the White House’s discovery of millions of missing emails, the Bush administration abruptly took the new position that the OA is not an agency subject to the FOIA.
• When confronted with requests for White House visitor records created and maintained by the Secret Service, the Bush administration took the novel position that the records are actually presidential records not available to the public under the FOIA.
• Bush White House staff had RNC email accounts on their blackberries to avoid creating public records of their actions.

The Bush administration's missing email saga continues.  CREW's Anne Weismann has it figured out -- the Bush White House wants to run out the clock and keep the public from seeing what are the public records of George Bush's presidency.

 The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office, according to an internal White House draft document obtained by The Associated Press.

The nine-page outline of the White House's e-mail problems invites companies to bid on a project to recover the missing electronic messages.

The work would be carried out through April 19, 2009, according to the Office of Administration request for contractors' proposals, which was dated June 20.

Last week, the White House declined to comment on the document.

On Wednesday, the White House refused to talk about internal White House contracting procedures, but said the information is "outdated and seriously inaccurate." It would not elaborate. The White House also declined to say whether it has hired a contractor for the work yet.

"With an eye on the clock, the White House continues to drag its feet and do everything possible to postpone public access to the records of this presidency," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private watchdog group.

From investigative reporter Murray Waas:

The Justice Department investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys has been extended to encompass allegations that senior White House officials played a role in providing false and misleading information to Congress, according to numerous sources involved in the inquiry.

The widened scope raises the possibility that investigators will pursue criminal charges against some administration officials, and recommend appointment of a special prosecutor if there is evidence of criminal misconduct.

The investigators have been specifically probing the role of White House officials in the drafting and approval of a Feb. 23, 2007 letter sent to Congress by the Justice Department denying that Karl Rove (President Bush's chief political adviser at the time) had anything to do with the firing of Bud Cummins, a U.S. Attorney from Arkansas. Cummins was fired in Dec. 2006 to make room for Tim Griffin, a protégé and former top aide of Rove's.

The February 23 letter stated, "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin," and that the Justice Department was "not aware of anyone lobbying, either inside or outside of the administration, for Mr. Griffin's appointment."

Federal investigators have obtained documents showing that Kyle Sampson, then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Chris Oprison, then an associate White House counsel, drafted and approved the letter even though they had first-hand knowledge that the assertions were not true. The Justice Department later had to repudiate the Sampson-Oprison letter and sent a new one informing Congress that it could no longer stand by the earlier assertions.

 Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House briefing at Washington Post.com, doesn't think the illegal actions cited in the DOJ report were originated at the DOJ.  After all, Monica Goodling was the White House liaison:

The big fish keep swimming away.

The latest investigation into the overt politicization of the Department of Justice has meticulously documented how a handful of young political appointees blatantly violated federal laws and Justice Department policies by hiring career employees based on the extent of their devotion to Republican dogma.

But the report doesn't address who is responsible for creating the culture of corruption in which these aides thrived.

Who asked them to behave this way? Or, barring an explicit request, how did they come to conclude that this was what their superiors expected of them? Who twisted the Justice Department, designed to operate with a large degree of independence, into a political adjunct of the White House?

And is it really just a coincidence that Monica Goodling, the central culprit of this latest report, held the title of White House liaison?

A June report by the same two Justice Department offices that produced yesterday's findings concluded that over a five year period, aides stocked a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives, intending to reshape the department's ranks. Two more internal reports are in the works, one about political interference with the Civil Rights Division and the other about the role of politics in the administration's controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Whether the eager, young politicos who carried out these policies are held accountable is one question. But who was pulling their strings is another.

It's unlikely that former absentee landlord Alberto Gonzales was a key player here. Not only did some of these practices pre-date him, but his primary task, which he bungled, appears to have been to conceal the fact that he wasn't the one calling the shots.

Indeed, it's hard to reach any conclusion other than that White House political operatives masterminded a plan to defile the Justice Department's mission in the short run and to seed its ranks with people who will be in a position to continue the corruption for a long time to come.

Yesterday, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Secret Service for records of all visits Stephen Payne made to the White House and residence of the vice president, following on the heels of a revelation by The London Times that Mr. Payne, a lobbyist and top Bush fundraiser, has attempted to sell access to top administration officials in exchange for contributions to the Bush library.  We know a thing or two about obtaining visitor records from the Bush administration.  CREW recently won a court victory in our lawsuit to obtain White House visitor records .

Interesting that Dana Perino already cited the ongoing litigation as a reason to deny access to Payne's visitor records.  That just doesn't make sense: