EMail Messes With Plausible Deniability

A 2010 e-mail from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says his department was “waiting for the go-ahead” from the White House before accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, according to newly released documents, despite Obama administration assertions that her ouster was Vilsack’s decision alone.

The e-mail, which was made public Friday in an ongoing federal court case over the matter, shed more light on the evening of July 19, 2010, when the USDA hastily asked Sherrod to resign after a video showing her making supposed racist remarks surfaced on a conservative Web site. Her dismissal turned into a racial firestorm after it became clear that the video had been edited and her remarks were meant to tell a story of reconciliation.

Both the White House and Vilsack have repeatedly said that the agriculture secretary made the decision to ask for Sherrod’s resignation without White House input.

[...]

The correspondence is evidence in a federal defamation case that Sherrod filed in 2011 against the late blogger Andrew Breitbart, who posted the video, and his colleague Larry O’Connor. The Justice Department has been pushing to keep the e-mails sealed but lost Friday afternoon when U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that they did not have to be kept private.

  WaPo

I have one quibble with this article – or maybe it’s with the judicial system.  The article claims that after Breitbart’s sudden and unexpected death in 2012, his wife was substituted in the suit in his place. You can do that now? Is a wife co-owner of a man’s website account as well as his bank account? Is she responsible for what he posted?

Anyway….

Justice Department attorney David Glass replied to the judge that “when there is a reference to the White House was involved, what it means is the White House liaison was involved.”

Those guys will try anything, won’t they? And what? The White House liaison is not a part of the administration? The White House liaison does not liaise on the one end with the White House?

As the administration came under fire, Vilsack reversed course, apologizing and asking [Sherrod] to return to the department — an offer she declined. President Obama also offered Sherrod an apology.

The weasels. Good luck on that lawsuit Shirl.  Make 'em pay.