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.

Go Get 'Em Shirl

Shirley Sherrod has at least one lawsuit in the offing in connection with her firing by the USDA when an edited video shown by recently deceased conservative Andrew Breitbart made it look like she said something racist. USDA director Tom Vilsack couldn't even wait to see if she had any proof that, as she claimed, the whole video would have shown exactly the opposite. Now, it appears that, as we might have imagined, the White House was consulted and in cohort with Vilsack.

White House officials were in close contact with the Agriculture Department in the hours leading up to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s decision to fire USDA employee Shirley Sherrod in 2010, according to nearly 2,000 pages of internal emails released by the administration.

[...]

USDA officials asked Sherrod, who is black, to resign after the original video emerged. Once it became clear a day later that Sherrod’s speech was about racial reconciliation, not division, Vilsack apologized and asked her to return to the department — an offer she declined.

President Barack Obama also offered an apology after her ouster created a racial firestorm.

[...]

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday repeated the administration’s statement that the decision to oust Sherrod was USDA’s alone. “The emails confirm what we said at the time, which is that the White House had no involvement in the decision made regarding Ms. Sherrod’s employment, her firing, but were made aware of the decision that had been made by the Department of Agriculture,” Carney said.

  WaPo

Yeah, don't make the mistake of thinking the White House is going to step up and take responsibility for anything. Especially during campaign season. And good on Shirley for declining that offer.

Here's Charlie Pierce's response:

I sincerely hope Shirley Sherrod and her lawyers win so big that they have to dig up Andrew Breitbart and collect the pennies off his eyes. I sincerely hope, at some point, Shirley Sherrod gets in a room with Tom Vilsack, and with the incumbent president of the United Stares, and with everyone of his micturating staffers, and she spits on every damn one of them.

[...]

This is what happens when the people running politics accept as axiomatic that spin is everything. This is what happens when, because of that, courage is defined by keeping your own job.

  Charles Pierce

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.