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August 15, 2009
White House David Axelrod e-Mails Illegal
FOX News' Major Garrett says he has given emails to the White House he has received from people complaining they never signed up to receive them.. WH still ain't saying how it got the names.
Garrett say at the start he would give the e-mails to the WH only if the sender gave him permission. So obviously he contacted the people and they said it was ok.
This could get ugly for Obama if it turns out the WH violated the law in assembling these e-mail lists.
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Kimberly Guilfoyle WH e-mails illegal
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The WH maintains a massive e-mail list as part of its effort to promote its position on pressing issues. On Thursday, senior adviser David Axelrod used the list to send out a "chain" e-mail asking supporters of health care reforms backed by the administration to forward his rebuttal to criticism circulating on Internet.
The mail offered reasons to support Obama's agenda and tried to debunk what the White House decries as myths in the health care debate.
Asked whether the White House seeks other pieces of information to identify those who might be curious about health care even though they have never signed up for e-mails or visited the Web site, Gibbs said he would have to see the e-mails to know.
Pressed to explain why he couldn't answer, Gibbs said "Well, I hesitate to give you an answer because you might impugn the motives of the answer."
"Why would you say that?" Garrett asked incredulously. ( people wrote to Major Garret because they knew he was the Fox WH correspondent)
"Because of the way you phrased your follow up. I'd have to look at what you got, Major. I appreciate the fact that I have omnipotent clarity as to what you've received in your e-mail box today," Gibbs said.
"You don't have to have omnipotent clarity. You don't have to impugn anything," Garrett fired back. "I'm telling you what I got: e-mails from people who said I never asked anything from the White House."
Ending the exchange, Gibbs said, "Let me go someplace else that might be constructive."
Fox is continuing to ask the White House about how people who never requested communication received e-mails on health care and other topics. So far, it's slow-going. But not for lack of effort.
The Fox staff is plowing through the comments and is trying to approve them as rapidly as possible.
The blog at FOX for Major Garrett is listed as his seat number for the White House Press room
The White House ...Obama, has started spamming Americans!
UPDATE: Major got your questions and we’re posting your comments!
August 14, 2009
E-Mail Story Update
Fox is continuing to ask the White House about how people who never requested communication received e-mails on health care and other topics. So far, it's slow-going. But not for lack of effort.
As you can see, this blog is now drowning in comments on this topic. The Fox staff is plowing through the comments and is trying to approve them as rapidly as possible. The network apologies, through me and this post, for delays in posting comments.
The network and this correspondent have in the past 30 hours received hundreds of e-mails from people who say they have received -- via their personal and private e-mail account - White House communication(s) they never sought.
Some who have e-mailed me or the network insist they never used an opt-in or subscribe function on the White House web site, the typical means by which any White House would be expected to obtain a private e-mail account information.
Others says they have visited the White House website to watch a streaming video or to send comments on topics such as health care and the so-called "Beer Summit." In many, but not all instances, these e-mailers say all they tried to do was leave a comment or seek an answer to a specific question - not to become a member of a general White House e-mail distribution list.
A third category of e-mailers say all they have contacted their members of Congress or U.S. Senators on legislative topics -- health care and others. These e-mailers say they never used the White House website for anything and wonder if lawmakers passed along their e-mail information to the White House.
E-mailers in all three categories are mystified. Also, in every instance so far, e-mailers insist the e-mail(s) they received from the White House was/were not forwarded. They are positive the e-mails arrived directly from the White House.
Fox cannot independently verify all of these accounts. Fox can only represent what hundreds of e-mailers have represented to me or to the network.
But in some instances, e-mailers have volunteered to give up the e-mails they've received to White House officials if it mean obtaining an explanation about how they came to land on the Obama distribution list.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday established what sounded like the standard by which any inquiry into this matter could be conducted. This is Gibbs address me during Thursday's briefing:
"I'd be interested to see who you got that e-mail from and whether or not they're on the list," Gibbs said. "You're asking me if they're on a list and if you can figure out a different way of checking without asking me to double-check the names, I am happy to."
At the time of the briefing, I did not possess permission from any e-mailer to provide their address to the White House. Fox has that permission from many e-mailers now.
I have made it clear to Gibbs - through repeated e-mail correspondence - that the e-mails are his to review for a reasonable period of time to determine how they landed on the White House "list" he himself first referenced. Gibbs has declined to respond.
In a related development, Fox on Friday filed a Freedom of Information request to obtain the full e-mail distribution list for the Axelrod health care e-mail and all internal White House e-mails about the list's creation.
In general, the White House has said private e-mails in its possession are being housed strictly for legal, legitimate archive purposes. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise.
But among the questions on the minds of many e-mailers is how they could receive direct communication from the White House they never sought.
"If the White House got those email addresses the same way that anybody else gets e-mail addresses, or through some other lawful methods then I'm not terribly troubled by it," said Chris Hansen of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If, however, the White House got those e-mail addresses because people were sending in notes saying 'My uncle Bob is opposed to your health care plan you probalby should write to him,' I think that presents serious concerns."
Fox interviewed two e-mailers who contacted the network to complain about receiving the Axelrod e-mail. One was Lou Porta from St. George, Utah. The other was Jack Benjamin from Nashville, Tenn.
Porta said he's never accessed the White House website, never sent an e-mail to his member of Congress, and never used his e-mail address to discuss the health care debate with anyone.
"I don't want my name on some list," Porta said. "You know, my wife and I really want our privacy. I don't want to be on any list where I may be getting further e-mails from other groups. That's the main thing. We don't want to be on a White House list. We're not Democrats, we're conservative Republicans."
Benjamin, who also described himself as a Republican, said he received the Axelrod health care e-mail as a pop-up ad while he was reading a blog. He said the pop-up must have been approved by his internet service provider, AOL.
"The White House wants to put out a message so they have a conduit to put the message out to people who haven't contacted them in any way," Benjamin said. "Therefore, they're using AOL the same way that a spammer would be. I'm not particularly interested in hearing from David Axelrod."
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Wild Thing's comment......
This is another reason why Fox is kicking the other networks behind, in ratings. Kudos to Major for continuing to press. IMO, the Whitehouse has started a direct war with Fox News. It's nice to see Fox not backing down.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 02:55 AM
Comments
WOW, I don't watch FOX for ONE day and all this breaks loose...I saw the original question Major asked Gibbs, but so many things you think will have legs just doesn't get any attention.
They think they can do any damn thing they want. That, and the fact that be B'Ball O'Bozo Brigade probably has an average age of "just graduated Columbia University."
I've NEVER put any count into the fact that Zero was supposedly a constitutional lawyer or taught it or lit the constitution on fire for warmth (Chicago is COLD), although I think the later is what is more likely.
I've never really seen any proof that he's all that highly intelligent. I think he's just been schooled at the same stuff for so long (bullshit and fairyunicornrainbow dust) that he's a top expert at deceit. He even believes himself. He's horrible with foreign policy (no TOTUS to go to those little meetings with little foreign dictators), can't answer impromptu without 3 uh's to ever actual word, and I don't count "tuh" for "to" or "fer" for "for" as real words, Odumbo.
But really, he's horrible at policy, but getting back to my first point about his administration, it's clearly a patronage program that guides his appointments, and the Czars are there to do the actual work after he doles out his latest brainstorm.
Lastly, Judge Napolitano has been pointing to things they've been doing that is illegal and unconstitutional since Day Minus 75. Nothing ever happens. This can't go on forever. Think I've thought "this is IT!" at least two dozen times since last year thinking these criminals would be toast, but they just get away with it. They can spend weeks worrying about Major League Baseball players using steriods (that's their business, how????), but can't seem to finish an investigation about Charlie Rangle's tax evasion.
Okay, I'm feeling encouraged...at least this will make them uncomfortable for awhile.
Thanks for putting that all together!
Posted by: Eden at August 15, 2009 05:20 AM
So far I have received two E mails from David Axelrod and answered both. Thinking about it, maybe I shouldn't, it gives them ammunition to shoot at us. The last thing they need. So How they got my Email address, I have no idea.
Gibbs is a clutz, he is a lousy liar and his face gives away any credibility he may have had. His comment about Fox impugning anything he might say is telling about what is really going on. They're not only liars they're paranoid liars too.
Posted by: Mark at August 15, 2009 07:50 AM
I have gotten a few from axelrod and hit the delete on them. I did respond sometime back to something from the WH so I guess they kept the address. What I sent wasn't very pleasant, so I am quite surprised at getting stuff from obambozo and his roids(hemerroids that is).
I have refrained from resonding due to the fact that I would be using profanity. I was in the Sea Service at a time when we were noted for our foul language, and proud of it. That would have accelerated the process of putting me on "Nappy's List". but I am probably on it already. Being Retired Navy, Vietnam Era, Cold War, etc. those qualifications probably have me there.
Posted by: Glenn Cassel AMH1(AW) USN RET at August 15, 2009 08:04 AM
Eden, I've felt the same way. The experts say "this is illegal" and that's as far as it goes. This administration employs a whole network of fellow travelers. The Cabinet is simply something that's required by law and has been largely marginalized. His Czar minions do the heavy lifting. Hillary is a good example. They send her off to Africa on an extended trip so she can drop off the radar. Come to think of it, this may bite them in the ass. Bill and Hill are the most shrewd and cunning pair that's probably ever been in D.C. She will have her day, make no mistake. What does Hillary know of the birth cert.? Makes one wonder when the Dems of the old party are going to clash with the Dems of the Communist persuasion.
Posted by: Jim at August 15, 2009 08:41 AM
Folks, I have met people like Gibbs my entire life: as a student, at academia (while teaching), at large corporations, in the judicial system (lawyers and judges), in international organizations. They are ALLLLLLLL the SAME! They despise the common man, they despise democracy really because they consider themselves the elite, who know better than most voters. They are all little Machiavellists who believe that the end (their "good cause" that cannot be disputed) justifies the means, and that people who oppose them are not just people with a different opinion: no, these people are at best stupid and need to be re-educated, or at worst, evil and need to be locked up. I always had the feeling that if it were not for the law protecting me (so far), they would have made me disappear already a long time ago, as happens in China! And after all these decades, these liberal elites have finished their march through the institutions and now they are running this country. Contrary to Europe, however, most Americans are not ready for this (yet - just wait) and this creates the friction and division we are witnessing now. Thank the Lord for FOX news!
Ed
Posted by: Eddy Burke at August 15, 2009 09:45 AM
FOX is the only major news outlet that is going to keep the American People posted on this. If this turns out to be illegal on the part of the WH, I seriously doubt that the other major networks will say a thing. They won't do anything to expose the dishonesty or criminal activities of the Obama Administration.
Posted by: BobF at August 15, 2009 10:13 AM
Well Eddy, academia has poisoned the minds of several generations of young people and this is what we have influencing the gubbermint policy of the new Afrika . If I had my druthers (sp) it would be the hangmans noose for each and every one of these assholes.
Posted by: cuchieddie(former Army Infantry) at August 15, 2009 11:57 AM
I obviously am not on the list. The only time I emailed the WH was to wish Bush good luck on his first term. I received a picture of W and Laura via snail mail and nothing else. Bush obviously did not keep lists.
obama and his group probably do keep an enemies list. I don't know they plan to do with it, but I would advise against emailing unless you use an alternate address and computer. I also don't sign petitions via email.
Posted by: TomR at August 15, 2009 12:11 PM
This is the most non-transparent, corrupt administration and congress this nation has ever had. We must change it in 2010 and 2012. If I wanted Chicago style politics I would have moved to Chicago.
Posted by: Bob A at August 15, 2009 03:06 PM
Eden, I agree, it will show them we are
watching and what they do that is not
right at least FOX will look into it.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:17 PM
Mark, I bet a lot of people responded
to the emails they got from him,
I mean it was such a great opportunity
to let him know how we feel. I am glad
you did and great reponses too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:20 PM
Glenn Cassel AMH1(AW) USN RET, I
didn't get one which suprised me
since I did sign up during last
years campaign at all the politicans
websites just to get their propaganda
to know about for the blog.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:24 PM
Eddy, thank you so much. You are so right.
"these liberal elites have finished their march through the institutions and now they are running this country."
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:26 PM
BobF., yes thank goodness for Fox, they
are not perfect but they come close enough.
They really are staying with looking into
this too which is great.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:27 PM
Tom, I wasn't on the list either.
giggle I did the same thing and got
the most wonderful photo of them. I still
have it.
I agree Tom, there is some way they got
the emails and it wasn't from Bush or
from the past administrations term.
I have been to other blogs on this too and
a few forums and a lot of people got the email.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 15, 2009 07:31 PM
