EMAILS SHOW WHITE HOUSE INPUT ON SHERROD OUSTER

◼ 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. - Breitbart/Big Government

But they do show the White House and Agriculture Department officials were sharing information and advice from the first minutes after the scandal began to emerge until Sherrod submitted a resignation hours later at the request of a senior USDA official.

The email exchanges confirm what White House and Agriculture Department officials acknowledged in background interviews in the weeks after the incident _ that the White House was more involved in the immediate response to the video of Sherrod's remarks than officials initially let on. Several emails detail White House and USDA calls to members of Congress, civil rights groups and Vilsack the night Sherrod was fired.

No one stepped in to stop Vilsack from telling his subordinates to get Sherrod to resign. But it's clear that the White House kept itself in the loop on the decision to oust her.

"We're good with this version on this end. Counsel has cleared the language," White House cabinet communications director Tom Gavin said in an email to the Agriculture Department's Mather after Mather sent him Vilsack's initial statement on Sherrod's firing.