Sunday, July 5, 2009
C. Ray Nixon, Part 2
Posted by Clancy DuBos on Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 11:58 PM
Well, well, well. The Nagin Administration’s court-ordered “forensic review” of the city’s computer servers has determined that the mayor’s missing emails were deleted on purpose by someone who knew what he or she was doing — and not as the result of some automated program designed to free up space on the city’s “overloaded” servers.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
What’s most interesting to me about last week’s announcement by the Louisiana Technology Council, which was hired by the administration and then brought in Carrollton Technology Partners to conduct the review, was the statement that the mailbox containing Mayor Ray Nagin’s emails was the only one missing — of 59 mailboxes on the server. So much for the administration’s declaration, made in court earlier this year, that the mayor’s emails were deleted to make room on the city’s server, which was running out of space. If the server were genuinely overloaded (a preposterous claim), lots of mailboxes would be missing, not just Nagin’s.
This brings me back to my column of March 9, in which I compared Nagin to Richard Nixon. The parallels between Hizzoner and Nixon were striking even then; now they glow in the dark.
For example, last week’s announcement should trigger the public search for Nagin’s Rose Mary Woods. Woods was the longtime Nixon secretary who erased some of the Watergate tapes and created the infamous 18-minute gap. One can only assume (hope?) that the feds are already on the trail of the person who erased Nagin’s emails — or already know who did it. It would be interesting to hear what that person might say under oath. It would be even more interesting if the feds could locate the missing emails. What a treasure trove they must be. Why else would they be deliberately erased?
Another parallel between Nagin and Nixon is the protracted, public nature of their respective downfalls. Nixon’s took roughly two years and led to his resignation. Nagin has only 10 months left in office; this scandal surfaced in February. He may well serve out his term, but the federal statute of limitation runs for at least five years.
Another interesting parallel is the courts’ role in ferreting out the truth. In Watergate, U.S. District Judge John Sirica earned the nickname “Maximum John” for giving Watergate co-conspirators oodles of jail time. In Nagin’s case, Civil District Court Judge Rose Ledet ordered the administration to search for the missing emails. That led to the hiring of the Louisiana Technology Council and last week’s announcement. I can’t wait to see Ledet’s reaction to the revelation that Nagin’s emails were deliberately deleted as a result of what the auditors termed “technologically competent human action.”
Read: Cover-up.
Anyone who has followed Ledet’s handling of this matter knows that she won’t look kindly on this development. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her rule Nagin himself into court and put him under oath to answer questions about the deletions. If not Nagin, perhaps a city attorney or two. At a minimum, the administration appears to be in contempt of court for its insultingly ridiculous prior claims about the missing emails.
And let’s not forget the role that the press played in both scandals. Nixon was brought down by a pair of dogged Washington Post reporters. Nagin’s lawbreaking has been exposed by Lee Zurik of WWL-TV, who first asked for the mayor’s emails under the Louisiana Public Records Act — and then haled Hizzoner into court after the administration ignored his request.
Comments (5)
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Great piece, Clancy. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing to add, which is unusual for me.
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Here are a few things to add: 1. The person who had access to delete emails is likely the same person who had access emails that could be delivered to White and Washington/Morial/Jupiter. 2. "They also found that Nagin's e-mails on the new server only started in February of this year." Now what was happening in February of this year? 3. And the same person who said that the emails were destroyed due to "server storage and capacity problems, which have temporarily limited the city's capabilities to retain employee e-mails for any extended period of time." Is the same person who said this: http://www.wdsu.com/download/2009/0313/18927976.pdf - Nagin is like Nixon in that he rifled through opponents' files (the 3-4 Councilmembers (whom he perceived as "opponents")) plumber-style for his own political gain, probably even before the emails were turned over to Washington/Morial/Jupiter, and then tried to cover it up. You are not looking for his Woods; you're looking for his plumbers, his Liddy or Hunt. Their job was to burglarize and break into files that could provide information that could discredit enemies; and then their job was to cover that up. So thereyago.
Hey, remember this, from the May 11, 2003 Picayune? "In legal briefs, Booth argued that by allowing electronic messages to vanish without a trace, city officials essentially were destroying public records every day. And not just BlackBerry messages. Meffert acknowledged in his deposition that some standard, non-BlackBerry e-mail messages also may have been lost during an unspecified period of the first eight months of Nagin’s administration as the city converted to a new desktop e-mail server. Belsome apparently was somewhat moved by Booth’s arguments. He awarded the Brass attorney’s fees and court costs totaling $5,067. At the end of his order telling the city to turn over all nonprivileged e-mail messages, he added, pointedly: "The court further notes that since BlackBerry communications can be retrieved by e-mail , such communications can and will be producible to public-records requests."" - Or this from Mr. Elie, April 18, 2003: "President Nixon chronicled his downfall on tape, but it wasn’t his fault. Lacking a technology czar, he did the best he could with the primitive technology at his disposal. Ray Nagin has Gregory Meffert, an assistant with all the cuddliness of Henry Kissinger plus all the dot-com gadgets of a modern toy store." "Enter a multipage document purported to be e-mail communication via Blackberry between Nagin top aides Meffert, Charles Rice, Patrick Evans, Garey Forster and Beth James. Copies have made their way into the public domain. Bad place for sensitive information." So, we have emails going public mysteriously, and then mysteriously disappearing. How many times does something have to happen for there to be an M.O. in your book?
