In The Blogs

Obama White House Close to Settling Missing Emails Case

| Tue Mar. 31, 2009 8:37 AM PDT

— Photo from flickr user Scott Ableman used under a Creative Commons license

The long saga of the missing White House emails may be finally nearing its end. The Obama administration and two nonprofits that are suing it over millions of missing Bush-era emails have called a truce. A joint motion (PDF) and proposed order (PDF) filed by Justice Department lawyers and the plaintiffs, the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), call for an indefinite stay of the case so the two sides can continue settlement negotiations. Both the White House and the nonprofits will have to withdraw their pending motions (including a White House motion to dismiss the case) and update the court on settlement proceedings in three months. But the whole ordeal could be over well before that—if contentious issues are resolved in the next few days or weeks.

"We just got a stay from the judge to give us some room to try to work things out," says Meredith Fuchs, the general counsel for the National Security Archive. "It will take a while before we know whether our talks are successful because our ability to resolve the case depends on nailing down lots of details: what happened, was it fixed, and will it happen again."

The National Security Archive and CREW have been pushing the White House to disclose information about millions of missing emails for years. The case began in 2007, after the Bush administration warned that it may have lost millions of emails that should have been archived under federal record-keeping laws. That brought the lawsuit to force the recovery of the emails and the adoption of a better archiving system. Bush administration lawyers fought the plaintiffs tooth and nail, successfully passing the buck to the next administration and keeping secret the details of how and why the emails were lost. In January, the Obama administration became the defendant in the case, and at first showed signs of continuing the Bush administration's legal strategy, filing a motion to dismiss the case the day after the new team took office. It's unclear what the Obama White House is now offering. But, no doubt, its more than what the Bush administration ever put on the table.

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The National Security Archive, which has sued every president since Reagan over electronic record-keeping, has settled email litigation in the past. Its agreement with the Clinton administration gave the nonprofit some oversight over how a new archiving system, ARMS, was set up, and the National Security Archive was largely satisfied with the results. But the incoming Bush administration, eager to adopt Microsoft Outlook for its emails, discarded the Clinton-era archiving system, which worked with Lotus, but not with Outlook. While Outlook was eventually adopted, no effective replacement for the Clinton archiving system was ever put in place. Any settlement with the Obama White House will likely include a promise from the administration to offer proof that it has implemented an effective way to manage email archiving, as required by law. Fuchs says she wants to know exactly what happened. If the settlement talks succeed, we may finally find out.

The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Nick Baumann covers national politics for Mother Jones' DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here. He can also be found on twitter.

Comments

Those who should know better

Submitted by tycophilus (not verified) on Wed Apr. 1, 2009 12:06 AM PDT.

Those who should know better need to stop insulting the intelligence of the public by pretending that this is about what happened to the emails. We know exactly what happened to those millions of emails. They were intentionally destroyed by the Bush administration to cover up crimes and potential crimes. You don't just accidentally delete millions of emails. That scale of destruction was deliberate and calculated. Stop trying to reframe the question into some irrelevant question about administrative competence and avoid the relevant question that should have been asked, namely "WHAT WERE THE CONTENTS OF THE EMAILS?" That's the question that must be asked and answered. Anything else is just an insult. Of course, anyone who has been paying attention these past eight years has a pretty good idea what was probably in those emails.

we know....

Submitted by DRAGO (not verified) on Thu Apr. 2, 2009 5:18 AM PDT.

Crooks cover their tracks

Evidence

Submitted by Patrick Cahel (not verified) on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 6:38 PM PDT.

Those emails contained evidence that the administration started a false war, used political power to fire attorneys, didn't care about the victims of hurricane katrina, that George W. Bush was an alcoholic during his two terms in office, that he authorized the leak of Valerie Plame's name, and that defense corporations repeatedly advocated for an invasion of Iraq so that they could obtain unprecedented no-bid contracts.

Obama and company need to

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Apr. 6, 2009 6:06 PM PDT.

Obama and company need to quit coddling the Bu$h admin's criminal behavior. Those missing emails occurred almost entirely during sensitive periods of time, such as the run up to the Iraq invasion, the Abu Griab scandal, the US attorney firings, etc. Puleese! Outlook Express suddenly failed only during those times? Obama took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Bu$h violated his oath and we deserve to know the extent of his criminality. Nixon, Reagan and senior Bu$h all committed crimes that were swept away without accountability, leading up to the arrogant, brazen law breaking of the Bu$h/Cheney era. We need to hold them accountable, once and for all, to break that dreadful pattern.

BARACK OBAMA IS BRILLIANT!

Submitted by The Dissemination Machine (not verified) on Sun Apr. 12, 2009 3:03 PM PDT.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA IS BRILLIANT! The American people know that Barack Obama will diligently attend to matters related to missing emails. Speaking of Barack Obama—Barack Obama is a racial-minority individual and does not like racism: And Michelle Obama is a racial-minority individual and does not like racism: SCANDALS! SCANDALS! SCANDALS! SOME OF THE WORST CASES OF RACIAL PREJUDICE IN WORLD HISTORY! CONSTRUCTIVE WORLDWIDE DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION RELATING TO SCANDALS: (I) I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed atrocious, racist, hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention. Many people know what Bush did. And many people will know what Bush did—even until the end of the world. Bush was absolute evil. Bush is now like a fugitive from justice. Bush is a psychological prisoner. Bush often worries. In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy. (II) It is opined that Bill Clinton committed terrifying, racist, hate crimes during his presidency, and I am not free to say anything further about it. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out’ (Numbers 32:23). (III) What if basically all racial-minority people would subscribe to the interpretations that George Herbert Walker Bush committed monstrous, racist, hate crimes while he was the President of the United States? It will eventually come out: it is only a matter of time. (IV) I know it may be hard to believe. However, Ronald Wilson Reagan committed horrible, racist, hate crimes during his presidency. Respectfully Submitted by Andrew Wang, J.D. Candidate B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996 Messiah College, Grantham, PA Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993 (There are thousands of copies on the Internet (by March 29, 2009) indicating the contents of (I), (II), (III), and (IV). For example, one can go to Google right now, type “George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism,” hit “Enter,” and readily find 1,000 or more copies indicating content of (I). For example, one can go to Msn right now (12 April 2009), type “It is opined that Bill Clinton committed racist hate crimes, and I am not free to say anything further about it,” hit “Enter,” and readily find more than 460 copies indicating content of (II). For example, one can go to Msn right now, type “George Herbert Walker Bush committed monstrous, racist, hate crimes,” hit “Enter,” and readily find more than 200 copies indicating content of (III). For example, one can go to Msn right now, type “Ronald Wilson Reagan committed horrible, racist, hate crimes during his presidency,” hit “Enter,” and readily find more than 170 copies indicating content of (IV). The contents of (I), (II), (III), and (IV) exist extensively in all major search engines. And there are thousands of copies in very many countries around the world. For example, there are countless copies on the Internet in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom, etc.) “BAD NEWS FROM THE UNITED STATES: ON THE RACIST HATE CRIMES AND ETERNAL INFAMIES OF GEORGE W. BUSH, BILL CLINTON, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, AND RONALD REAGAN” BLOG OF ANDREW WANG badnewsfromtheunitedstates.blogspot.com _______________ ‘If only there could be a Ban against invention that bottled up memory like scent & it never faded & it never got stale.’ Off the top of my head, it came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.