The Clintons’ First Email Scandal: Project X 1996-1998

Note: The NY Post wrote about Project X today, but didn’t provide any of the details. The below tells the full story (with links) of the Clintons’ 1st email scandal.

During Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House a “glitch” (or person) turned off the automatic email archiving system causing the loss of of around one million emails. The missing emails just “happened” to occur at the same time as the Kenneth Starr was subpoenaing emails for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and congress was asking for emails because they were investigating the “Filegate”  scandal.  The emails lost just “happened” to be from the accounts of President Clinton and other who were being investigated in the above scandals and the people who discovered the missing emails were threatened with jail if they spoke about the missing emails.

According to the House Oversight Committee report released in Dec. 2000 the basics of the scandal:

The White House installed an Automated Records Management System (ARMS) to store all email correspondence in one central place, and make it easier to respond to document subpoenas. Due to a misconfiguration in the system, e-mail to about 500 White House officials was never recorded. E-mail was first discovered missing in January 1998, but the extent of the problem was not realized until later that year.

Top White House officials were notified in June. Despite the fact that e-mail was being subpoenaed in a number of civil and criminal cases, including the Lewinsky affair and the Filegate scandal, the White House did not notify investigators that some of it was missing. In mid-February 2000, the ex-chief of White House computer operations, Sheryl Hall who had moved to the Treasury Dept. came forward with allegations that Clinton administration officials were involved in an e-mail coverup. Betty Lambuth, working for a private employer under contract to the White House, charged that White House technicians had been threatened with loss of job, arrest, and jail if they revealed the problem.

The WH later said the problem was an unintentional “glitch”  and “blamed it on “human error,” attributing the problem to a “disconnect” between technicians and lawyers who apparently did not realize that the computer mistake might have an effect on the pending subpoena requests.”

Betty Lamuth who worked for CEXEC, a subcontractor for Northrop-Grumman that ran and maintained the White House computer system, heard about the missing email from one of her subordinates Robert Haas. Hass audited the WH system in June 1998 because he and other technicians discovered that automated archiving system wasn’t scanning and storing Internet e-mail sent to the server used by the Executive Office of the President. Lamuth testified under oath, that when she  informed the White House, Office of Administration counsel Mark Lindsay told her ”that if I or any of my team who knew about the e-mail problem told anyone else about it we would lose our jobs, be arrested and put in jail.”

She said Lindsay specified that she was not to tell even her private-sector boss, Steve Hawkins, who she said eventually removed her from her White House assignment when she refused to tell him about the e-mail problem. Lambuth said she and her co-workers dubbed the e-mail problem ”Project X,” (as a joking reference to the TV show “The X Files) and because of the threats, she and her staff took to meeting in a park close to the New Executive Office Building and in a nearby Starbucks when discussing the matter.

Lambuth also told the court,  “a subordinate told her some of the e-mails deal with “Vice President Al Gore’s involvement in campaign fund-raising controversies” and “the sale of Clinton Commerce Department trade mission seats in exchange for campaign contributions.” The subordinate said the e-mails also contained information on the White House’s improper gathering of FBI background files of long-ago Republican appointees and the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal”

A Northrop Grumman official, Joseph Vasta, testified the Clinton-Gore White House intimidated the e-mail contractor, Northrop Grumman, into participating in the e-mail cover-up. Vasta testified that it was made apparent that Northrop Grumman could lose its $50-million contract if it didn’t play ball with the Clinton-Gore White House.”

Not All of the WH emails were lost– just the ones on the Mail2 server. The officials served by Email 2 included Doris Matsui, Marsha Scott, Sidney Blumenthal, Cheryl Mills, Bruce Lindsey, Erskine Bowles, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Hernreich, John Podesta, Ira Magaziner, Ann Lewis, Charles Ruff, Lanny Breuer, Paul Begala, and President Clinton.

If some of those names sound familiar, they should. People such as Sid Blumenthal and Cheryl Mills have been questioned as part of the present Clinton email scandal and John Podesta is running Hillary’s present presidential campaign.  as they were also involved with Hillary Clinton’s tenure at state and/or her campaign. Two of the names are mentioned as part of Ms. Clinton’s present email scandal, Sid Blumenthal and Cheryl Mills. Bruce Lindsey now the Chairman of the Board of the Clinton Foundation was the foundation’s CEO from 2003 to 2013 during Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State which according to Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book Clinton Cash, a time when the foundation and the state department were involved in cronyism.

BTW Sheryl Hall had discovered an earlier possible Clinton violation of the law:

In early 1994, when a White House database was being developed, ostensibly for use as the First Lady’s Christmas card list, she became concerned about the inclusion of political information such as contributions to the Democratic National Committee. She found the White House was exchanging tapes and information with the DNC.

Hall said she believed that using government resources for political purposes was a violation of the Hatch Act. She discussed her objections to this with her immediate supervisor and with Patsy Thomasson, who was at that time the assistant director of the Office of Management and Administration, and Marsha Scott. Scott, who came from Arkansas with the Clintons, has been very close to the president. She has been called his “hippie girl friend.” Scott told Sheryl Hall that the database was top priority for Hillary and that the president was also very interested in it. A few weeks after these conversations she was taken off the project.

At least according to documents remaining on the web, news about “project x” began to disappear in October 2000, as the country approached the presidential election. Perhaps because the MSM was trying to protect then Vice President Al Gore as he campaigned for a promotion (which sounds like the present Clinton email case where the MSM is doing its best to cover up the scandal). As much as can be discerned from this investigation (so far), the project x emails dealing with the Bill Clinton White House scandals have never been discovered and turned over to the national archives.

It is pure speculation on my part but the Project X scandal may have been the real reason for Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server and desire to have complete control of her email.

http://lidblog.com/the-clintons-first-email-scandal-project-x-1996-1998/