DOJer: Missing White House Emails Found

[babylonsister]

Oopsie! :D

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.

more...

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

[aquart]

1. Uh huh.

[Dangerously Amused]

2. Heh heh heh.

This should be interesting...

[YDogg]

3. .

:popcorn:

[havocmom]

4. or replicated?

with redactions?

[helderheid]

12. my first thought

[PearliePoo2]

5. Private contractors found them?

Private contractors as in Halliburton?
If so, then those 14 million e-mails surely had NOTHING of interest on them and were thrown in the trash. (The garbage truck has already come and gone..so sorry)

[havocmom]

6. Since it took 10 million dollars, that is a valid question

;)

Anybody still have the pictures of the fleet of shredder trucks sent to VP's residence a while back? One would guess some paperwork also went missing.

[SpiralHawk]

7. "Bring 'em on. Smirk." - Commander AWOL & Republicon Homelander 'Leaders'

"Everybody's got something to hide...
Except for me and my monkey. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL Bush (R), VP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney & Cabal O' Republicon Homelander Cronies

[bigtree]

8. christ on a cracker

what a sham

[DCKit]

9. Believe it when stuff starts showing up on wikileaks. n/t

[chill_wind]

10. See also--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3691186


Criminal f--ks!

[riderinthestorm]

11. Any IT folks know if $10 million is a reasonable sum for performing this service?

So two possible scenarios are at play here:

1. The IT firm that "located" (cough) these emails has been working for months to find them. Is $10 million a fair sum for that work? Would it take that long? Since this seems like an exorbitant sum to me (stating upfront that I'm NOT an IT person so I don't know), would it be unreasonable to assume that there were other (possibly illegal) actions that were requested for that dollar amount?

And they complete their work just hours (cough again) after the directive is handed down? Riiiiight.

2. The IT firm was hired after the directive came down and was paid $10 million dollars for a few hours of work? Obviously this doesn't even begin to seem as reasonable....

This is bullshit of the highest order.

[notadmblnd]

18. the company I worked for charged $42, per man per hour to perform restores

with as many tapes they had to go through, I guess it's possible.

[lovuian]

13. We shall see

We shall see

[wiggs]

14. They'll be sealed for something like 21 years, right? That was one of Bush's first

executive orders...sealed presidential records for much longer timeframe after leaving office, retroactive to Bush I too. So unless these things are subpoened we won't be seeing them.

Weren't they subpoenaed once before with respect to the attorneys general firings? Or some other issue?

[myrna minx]

15. Uh oh! K&Rn/t

:rofl:

[Solly Mack]

16. Snort...if they have those recordings now then they had them a few years ago

but now, suddenly, they can retrieve the missing emails using the recordings and they couldn't then?

Oh, and..please stop the lawsuit since we can do this now...it just might take a little time...so can we delay releasing them?

snicker

[notadmblnd]

17. uh huh, several people here said at the time it would be found on backups

I guess they just had to spend a leetle more time lookin.