Legal Commentary

The Missing White House E-Mails

By Jeralyn

Jason Leopold has more on the affidavit filed by the White House in a federal court case this week in which the White House claims it had the hard drives of computer workstations destroyed when it replaced them and that it would be too expensive to search those that remain for e-mails. The period at issue is 2003 - 2005.

The White House also claims:

...there is simply no evidence to back up allegations made in a lawsuit filed by two government watchdog groups that claim the White House has lost as many as 10 million emails—some of which are said to coincide with dates involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson as well as the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. [White House Chief Information Officer Theresa]Payton said that since the watchdog groups’ claims are unsupported the White House should not be forced to undertake a “draconian” process of having to search for emails.

In other words, it's just a coincidence that, as Jason writes,

...computer experts could not locate a single email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney between September 30, 2003 and October 6, 2003—the week when the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the Plame Wilson leak and set a deadline for administration officials to turn over documents and emails to federal investigators that contained any reference to her or her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Additionally, Office of Administration staffers said there were at least 400 other days between March 2003 and October 2005 where emails could not be located in either Cheney’s office or the Executive Office of the President. Finally, Payton admitted in January that the White House “recycled” its computer back-up tapes until October 2003, which makes it much more difficult to retrieve emails.

Much more on the missing Cheney e-mails is here.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 23, 2008 (boomark / email).