If asked to identify one thing that defines the legacy of President Bush’s administration, I imagine most people would point to the war in Iraq. But there has been an ongoing problem within the White House that reveals the administration’s total disregard and lack of respect for the interests of the American people that truly defines Bush’s legacy. It is a legacy of secrecy. Even back in 2004, the White House’s disdain for public inquiry and knowledge of its actions was evident and a clearly established pattern of behavior. On Sept. 14, 2004, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking member of the committee on oversight and government Reform at the time – and now Chairman of the Committee – released a report on secrecy in the Bush administration. “The Bush administration has an obsession with secrecy,” Waxman said in a press release concerning the report. “It has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative report effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable.” The 81-page report, available online at the House Oversight Committee’s Web site, is a scathing indictment of the Bush administration that seriously brings into question its commitment to the important democratic principles of open government. According to the report, documents the White House has withheld from Congress and the public have included contacts between energy companies and the vice president’s energy task force, communications between the Department of Defense and the vice president’s office concerning Halliburton contracts, documents concerning prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and memoranda concerning White House intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To avoid public scrutiny, the President and his staff have used an array of tactics to keep their activities secret. According to the report, “the administration has supported amendments to open government laws to create new categories of protected information that can be withheld from the public.” The report continued by saying “the administration has expanded the authority to classify documents and dramatically increased the number of documents classified. It has used the USA Patriot Act and novel legal theories to justify secret investigations, detentions and trials. And the administration has engaged in litigation to contest Congress’ right to information.” This all happened in 2004. Since then, this systematic policy of secrecy has continued and recent events confirm the White House’s commitment to keeping its activities out of the public eye. During the ongoing scandal involving the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, the White House refused to release documents related to the firings to Congress for its investigation and did not want members of the Department of Justice to testify under oath. When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally went before Congress, it resulted in numerous contradictory and vague testimonies, the stress of which led to Gonzales falling ill with a serious case of C.R.S. – Can’t Remember Shit. But even more recently, a House Oversight Committee report reveals that many White House staff members have been using their Republican National Committee e-mail accounts to do official government business – a clear violation of the Presidential Records Act. The report found that Bush’s top political advisor, Karl Rove, sent more than 140,000 e-mails using the RNC’s computer system. There were 88 other White House aides identified in the report, but Rove was by far the biggest user of this under-the-table means for communication. The RNC destroys e-mails after 30 days, but the Presidential Records Act requires that all e-mails concerning official government business are to be retained for public record just like any other documents and communications. As a result of the use of these accounts, there are countless missing official White House documents. According to the report, “During President Bush’s first term, momentous decisions were made, such as the decision to go to Iraq. Yet many e-mail communications during this period involving the President’s most senior advisers, including Karl Rove, were destroyed by the RNC.” The report also points out that the White House counsel’s office, which was then headed by Gonzales, was aware of these systematic violations of the e-mail policy as early as 2001, but “took no action to preserve these presidential records.” I suppose it’s possible Gonzales just simply ‘forgot’ to do so. No motive is indicated in the report as to why White House officials were using the RNC accounts in violation of official policy and law, but if they did so to avoid public scrutiny of their official government actions and communications, they certainly have been successful. And given the Bush administration’s track record on maintaining secrecy, this suspicion is completely warranted. Although the Bush administration may be remembered most for the Iraq war, its horrid record of denying the public access to knowledge of their activities highlights a serious irony.
For a government that claims to be spreading democracy around the world, it reeks of hypocrisy when it fails to respect a bedrock principle of democracy itself: open and accountable government.
—Contact Erik Brown at [email protected]