Missing White House E-Mails Traced, Justice Aide Says

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

Missing White House E-Mails Traced, Justice Aide Says

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 15, 2009; A09

A Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge yesterday that the Bush administration will meet its legal requirement to transfer e-mails to the National Archives after spending more than $10 million to locate 14 million e-mails reported missing four years ago from White House computer files.

Civil division trial lawyer Helen H. Hong made the disclosure at a court hearing provoked by a 2007 lawsuit filed by outside groups to ensure that politically significant records created by the White House are not destroyed or removed before President Bush leaves office at noon on Tuesday. She said the department plans to argue in a court filing this week that the administration's successful recent search renders the lawsuit moot.

Hong's statement came hours after U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ordered employees of the president's executive office -- with just days to go before their departure -- to undertake a comprehensive search of computer workstations, preserve portable hard drives and examine any e-mail archives created or retained from 2003 to 2005, the period in which e-mails appeared to be missing.

Hong said private contractors had helped find the e-mails by searching through an estimated 60,000 tapes that contain daily recordings of the entire contents of the White House computers as a precaution against an electronic disaster.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/14/AR2009011401957_pf.html

[DS1]

1. Whoops!

:D

[lisa58]

2. when do we get to read them?

[grannie4peace]

6. i'm waitin' :):)

[Doctor_J]

3. This "discovery" is nicely timed to avoid impeachment

Hopefully the incoming DoJ will prosecute aggressively the obstruction and other high crimes that these e-mails turn up.

[chill_wind]

8. Exactly. My first thought was --- how convenient.

[No Elephants]

10. Impeachment? He'll be out in 5 days anyway. Or, do you mean "prosecution?"

[Doctor_J]

14. The timing precludes impeachment, since he'll be out in 5 days

it doesn't preclude prosecution which will hopefully begin before the end of the month

[Independent_Liberal]

17. He can still be impeached after he's out.

Plus, an impeachment process against * and Cheney could be started tomorrow in the morning and completed in the afternoon.

[pat_k]

19. . . .and right now, the possibility of passing judgment in a "post-facto" impeachment. . .. .

. . .is the only bit of comfort I've been able to find as the clock "ticks out". . . (a point I just made in a note I just dropped you.)

And, tragically, unless Pelosi has a revelation (who knows? could happen) or someone introduces a privileged resolution to keep the House in session pretty quick, today is the last opportunity for redemption through a "real time" impeachment. They plan to adjourn http://www.majorityleader.gov/links_and_resources/whip_resources/weeklyleader.cfm?pressReleaseID=2711">for the last time until after the inauguration in http://www.majorityleader.gov/docUploads/7DailyLeader11509.pdf?CFID=18619933&CFTOKEN=34537347">about two hours. . .

[Independent_Liberal]

18. Personally, I'm still in favor of impeachment despite the fact we only have a few days left.

I really wouldn't mind if a quick special session was called and impeachment of both W and Cheney was completed in a day. As a matter of fact, I'd encourage it if anybody got the will.

Very simple: Cheney resigns Friday. Bush appoints Condi VP and the Senate quickly confirms her on Saturday. Bush resigns Sunday. Condi takes over and oversees transition until Tuesday.

I think crazier things have happened.

[librechik]

4. no, not to the archives!

send em directly to the new Justice Department!

[1776Forever]

5. No one can say these Government Workers didn't do their job! Thank you!

:yourock:

[ohtransplant]

7. K&R

They never give up. Even after they've lost they fight to maintain control over their "discovery";



"She said the department plans to argue in a court filing this week that the administration's successful recent search renders the lawsuit moot."


In fact, the lawsuit was the only reason for their "discovery" and without it only meaningless chatter and favorite meatloaf recipes will remain. Hopefully they won't be successful in this effort.

[No Elephants]

9. Over $10 million to locate emails? Seriously? I smell laundry detergent.

[riderinthestorm]

15. That does seem like a lot of money to locate these missing emails. Any IT folks know?

I have no idea if this is a reasonable sum but it seems awfully high.

Was this contract something that extended over many months? And if so, what are the odds that the contract was "successfully" (cough) completed just hours after this ruling?

Or did it simply take an IT firm hours to "locate" (cough again) these missing emails and taxpayers are paying $10 million for that service.

Something smells pretty fishy here. Like a good part of that $10 million may have included some fancy deceptive (and illegal) IT footwork. That would explain the cost?

[faulknercindy]

22. Ummm they have been blowing wind up

skirts on this one. They should have been relatively easy to find.

[zeemike]

24. I think I can explain it.

They hire private contractors who just happen to be the in boys of the party, and who know that there highly inflated contracts are NOT to find things, and so they putter around for years if necessary.
That is how the ones that co operate with you get paid off...with tax payers money...

[Frustratedlady]

11. But, how soon will someone be able to peruse them? That article says...

Once the e-mails are transferred to the National Archives, federal law allows them to be requested under the Freedom of Information Act after a five-year interval.



Does that mean the common citizen, or does that mean everyone? Are these the emails that went through the Republican system?

Curious minds want to know.

[chill_wind]

12. So....they "found" them within **mere hours** of the order.

"Hong's statement came hours after U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ordered employees of the president's executive office -- with just days to go before their departure -- to undertake a comprehensive search of computer workstations (...)

At a cost of $10 million dollars, no less. Fooking criminals should be charged and jailed for obstruction- NOW.

[chill_wind]

13. kinda reminds me of Bush's lost Guard records that just happened

to "get found.." (incomplete as they were) when they were needed the most...

Bush Military Records Turn Up
Pentagon Finds Payroll Docs Which It Had Earlier Said Were Destroyed

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2004 | by Lauren Johnston

"The Pentagon had said that the payroll records for that time period had been inadvertently destroyed.

"Previous attempts to locate the missing records at the Federal Records Center had been unsuccessful due to the incorrect records accession numbers provided," the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information chief C.Y. Talbott said in a letter Friday to The Associated Press .."


The release came days before Democrats began their national convention in Boston to officially nominate Sen. John Kerry as their presidential candidate. Military veterans are being tapped at the convention to help tell Kerry's story (...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/28/politics/main639189.shtml

[jtrockville]

16. Did Fitz get a copy? Didn't he subpoena Dead-eye Dick's emails?

When Fitzgerald was investigating the outing of a US spy by US officials, didn't he subpoena Cheney's emails? Isn't this how they turned up missing?

Now that they're found, shouldn't he re-open the investigation?

[Soylent Brice]

20. K&R

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. $10 million of taxpayers' money!

just to find that were hidden in Cheney's laundry basket

[chill_wind]

27. Money paid to private contractors.

And I'd love to know the well-paid campany parties' name (s).

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. I'm wondering if we'll find that the most incriminating ones are missing. n/t

[dickthegrouch]

25. I want a statistical sampling of all the supposed recoveries

This is just too convenient and too easy to agree to if you don't know what you're doing.

I don't believe a word of it, and it will be too late after the fact to say "oops, sorry, we were wrong". I'll bet 9/10s of what they've 'found' is actually duplicates of each other just to make the quantity look right. A decent forensics guy (or gal) can validate this in about a day. It MUST be done.

[struggle4progress]

26. It's another lie, meant to forestall recovering whatever is on the WH computers

"We found them and are sending them to the archives" = "If you believe us, it'll be years before you discover we weren't telling the truth"