Susan Ralston
Susan Ralston answers questions about Karl Rove's e-mails. He used private accounts "from day one."
Submitted by crew on 19 June 2007 - 4:16pm. Karl Rove Presidential Records Act Susan RalstonEarlier today, we referenced the deposition of Susan Ralston by the House Oversight Committee. Excerpts of the transcripts -- not just links to the pdf documents -- have now been posted at The Gavel. Definitely worth a read. We're including two sections about Rove's e-mail usage:
BY MS. AMERLING: When did Karl Rove first start usìng his RNC e-mail account to send and receive e-mails from the White House?
A From day one.
[…]
Q For how long did Mr. Rove continue to use his political e-mail account to send e-mails from the White House?
A The entire time that I worked for hìm.
[…]
Q For how long did Mr. Rove continue to use his polit’ical e-mail account to send e-mails from the White House?
A The entire time that I worked for hìm.
Q Do you know how frequently he used this account?
A It would be hard for me to quantify how much. He used it a lot.
Q Did Mr. Rove have a BlackBerry provided by the RNC?
A I don’t know if the RNC actually provided the equìpment. It was a political BlackBerry, I don’t know if the BlackBerry came on — if he had it during the campaign — it was a political BlackBerry.
Q Did you ever see him use it?
A Yes.
Q When did he first start using this BlackBerry?
A I don’t know when he started using it in the White House. My best recollection is that he had it at the very beginning, but I can’t say exactly when it started.
Q Do you know how often he used it?
A He used it daily.
Q Many times over the course of a day?
A Yes.
Q Did he have a White House BlackBerry, an official White House BlackBerry?
A No, he did not.
[…]
Q Beyond Mr. Fitzgerald’s requests, were there other requests from other investigators for Mr. Rove’s e-mails?
A The only — there may have been, but the only other major investigation that I recall specifically was related to Enron.
Q Do you know when that would have been?
A I believe that was in 2001 sometime.
Q And you think in 2001 that Mr. Rove searched his e-mails to respond to a request for investigators relating to Enron?
A He or I searched.
Q And that search included a search of political e-mails sent over the political account?
A Correct.
Q Were other White House officials aware that Mr. Rove in 2001- was providing e-mails from his polìtical accounts to investigators who were looking at Enron?
A I believe so, because all of the documents that we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s Office.
And then there's Rove other private, but not RNC, e-mails:
Q Do you know what hi s personal e-maìl account address was?
A It was an AOL account. I don’t remember right now,
Q Do you know whether Ken Mehlman used a political e-mail account?
A You know. Karl also had a “Rove.com” e-mail address .
Q You are referrìng to a personal e-mail address?
A Well, it was — it wasn’t — I don’t know how you would classify it, but it was a “Rove.com” e-mail address. There were — I can’t remember when, but at some point his Rove. com e-mai ls all went to the same political account. So if you sent an account — if you sent an e-maìl to George W. Bush.com or if you sent an e-mail to him at Rove.com, it went to the same place.
Q Do you know why his e-mail was set up that way?
A I don’t.
Q Do you know whether he made any official communications over his Rove.com e-mail account?
A He may have, but I can’t think of — I mean, he may have, because he used it all the time.
Q Do you know whether e-mails sent or received on his Rove.com account were provided to investigators who sought e-mail records from Mr. Rove?
A I believe so. They took his political laptop; and, as I mentioned, that laptop was taken durìng the leak investìgation. All of the e-mails just kind of got funneled into the same potitical server.
Rove's aide said he used RNC e-mail "most of the time"
Submitted by crew on 19 June 2007 - 10:16am. Karl Rove Presidential Records Act Susan RalstonThe House Committee on Oversight deposed Karl Rove's former assistant, Susan Ralston. A pdf version of transcript of the deposition can be found at The Gavel. In this morning's Washington Post, an article on this White House e-mail scandal reported Ms. Ralston's revelation that Karl Rove frequently used RNC e-mail accounts, and not his White House account:
Former Rove assistant Susan B. Ralston affirmed in a deposition released by the committee that her ex-boss used his political e-mail account "most of the time."
The White House previously acknowledged that aides to President Bush improperly used the political e-mail accounts. But the material released yesterday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and for what purposes.
The committee said it learned that the White House aides used the RNC accounts to discuss official matters such as appointments and grant announcements. It also said at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts, a figure above previous administration statements that only about 50 had such accounts.
Former aide to Abramoff and Rove will plead "The Fifth" over White House dealings with Abramoff
Submitted by crew on 22 May 2007 - 6:20pm. Jack Abramoff Karl Rove Susan RalstonFrom our friends at TPM Muckraker, we learn that Susan Ralston will invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when she testifies before a House committee. You may recall that Ms. Ralston had the unique role of serving as an assistant to lobbyist/felon Jack Abramoff and White House political guru Karl Rove:
Karl Rove’s former secretary, Susan Ralston, will plead the Fifth if she is forced to testify about White House dealings with Jack Abramoff, according to a memo released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today.
Former Rove aide to be deposed about Abramoff
Submitted by crew on 30 March 2007 - 6:13pm. Susan RalstonLast October, Susan Ralston resigned from her job as assistant to Karl Rove after reports surfaced that she had served as a "conduit" between Rove and Jack Abramoff. She will be testifying next week about that relationship according to Roll Call (sub. req'd)
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has summoned Susan Ralston, a former top aide to White House adviser Karl Rove, to appear at a deposition on April 5 about her contacts with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
A March 30 letter from the committee to Ralston, said the panel would question her regarding whether White House officials reimbursed Abramoff for tickets and meals provided by him; whether White House officials acted improperly on behalf of Abramoff and his clients; and why Republican National Committee e-mails were used to communicate about official business with Abramoff.
Ralston, Abramoff’s former assistant at Preston Gates, resigned in October 2006 after a Congressional report found that she accepted tickets from Abramoff to nine sports and entertainment events while providing him with White House information. The report did not find evidence that Rove, who the Senate Judiciary Committee is seeking to question on the U.S. attorneys scandal, knew about Ralston’s actions.
Did White House staffers violate Presidential Records Act by using outside e-mail addresses to conduct business?
Submitted by crew on 15 March 2007 - 3:06pm. Bush Administration Jack Abramoff Justice Department Susan RalstonDid they? That's what CREW wants to know.
White House staffers who dealt with with Jack Abramoff and the U.S. Attorney firings sent e-mails from outside addresses linked to the Republican National Committee (RNC) to circumvent the mandatory record-keeping system. Today, CREW sent a letter to Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), asking for an investigation into whether the White House has violated its mandatory record-keeping obligation under the Presidential Records Act (PRA).
Our letter to Chairman Waxman and the accompanying documents can be found here.
One email released by the House Judiciary Committee earlier this week, sent to Justice Department Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson from J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, uses an email account, SJennings@gwb43.com, on a server owned by the Republican National Committee. This raises serious questions about whether the White House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA, which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during his tenure.
This isn't the first time. A number of other emails from Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's former assistant Susan Ralston to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff document Ms. Ralston's use of three outside domains: rnchq.com (used for the headquarters of the Republican National Committee), georgebush.com and aol.com. In many of these emails Ms. Ralston is communicating inside White House information to Mr. Abramoff in response to Mr. Abramoff's efforts to broker deals for his clients and place specified individuals in positions within the administration.
CREW has learned that to fulfill its statutory obligations under the PRA, the White House email system automatically copies all messages created by staff and sends them to the White House Office of Records Management for archiving. Given these development, it now appears that the White House deliberately bypassed the automatic archiving function of its own email system that was designed to ensure compliance with the PRA.
Melanie Sloan summed up CREW's position:
Now that we know that at least two White House officials have circumvented the law by using alternate email systems to discuss the U.S. Attorney firings and Jack Abramoff, we are asking Chairman Waxman to investigate whether the White House has continually violated its mandatory record-keeping obligation under the Presidential Records Act. This administration continues to disregard the law in favor of agenda-driven politics.
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