Ride the Lightning

TRUST ME, I’M FROM THE GOVERNMENT: COURT DECLINES

November 13, 2007

Yesterday, a federal judge ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, after (surprise) strenuous argument from the administration that this action was unnecessary. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to preserve backup tapes containing White House e-mails in response to two lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law. The groups allege that some 5 million White House e-mails have vanished. The Federal Records Act contains strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States. According to Meredith Fuchs, a lawyer for the National Security Archive, the order "should stop any future destruction of e-mails, but the White House stopped archiving its e-mail in 2003 and we don’t know if some backup tapes for those e-mails were already taped over before we went to court. It’s a mystery."  Cynics will note that this issue arose nearly two years ago in the probe seeking to identify the source of the leak that Valerie Plame was working for the CIA. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed early in 2006 that relevant e-mails could be missing because of an archiving problem at the White House. Who are they using, “Geeks ‘R Us?” Nothing the administration attorneys have said regarding the electronic evidence in this case passes the smell test. Congratulations to Judge Kennedy for holding the White House accountable.

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