White House computer technicians have found 22 million e-mails that were believed to have been lost during President George W. Bush’s administration, according to the Associated Press.
The discovery was announced Monday by the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed lawsuits against the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in 2007 for the e-mails.
The two groups had initially filed a Freedom of Information Act request for e-mails in the wake of a scandal involving the Justice Department, which had fired U.S. attorneys around the country in an apparent political bid to rid the department of prosecutors who didn’t adhere to the White House’s conservative agenda. The missing emails were also potentially crucial to the investigation into the Valerie Plame-CIA leak scandal.
The groups eventually filed lawsuits after the EOP revealed that it had lost about 5 million e-mails from its servers between January 2003 and July 2005 because the e-mails had not been archived properly per the Presidential Records Act. Among other things, CREW sought records about the EOP’s e-mail management system, about retained and missing e-mails and about any audit reports that might have revealed potential problems with the e-mail system.
The newly discovered e-mails were apparently mislabeled and were recently uncovered by contractors hired by the White House. The e-mails will eventually be made available to the public after they are archived through the National Archives and Records Administration.
These e-mails suddenly disappeared when Patrick Fitzgerald was attempting to discover what Dick Cheney knew about the Valerie Plame affair. The excuse was ridiculous ("the process by which e-mail was being collected and retained was primitive and the risk that data would be lost was high."), and the cover up obvious to anybody who was really paying attention. By this time the Bush administrations lies and obfuscations were becoming legendary, but still they were able to keep Fitzgerald from obtaining e-mails that may have resulted in Dick Cheney facing criminal charges.
Well now we have them, and I for one really want to know what they say. And if what they reveal will result in anybody in the Bush administration finally facing justice.
Interesting timing, right when good old Dr. Evil (Cheney) and his darling daughter Liz have been spouting their vile nonsense. Good news.
ReplyDelete22 MILLION lost emails!!! Out of how many MILLION sent? The amount boggles the mind.
ReplyDeleteAnd, who's going to read all 22 MILLION of them?
I won't hold my breath that the emails will be made public and/or that anyone from the previous admin. will be held accountable. Too potentially explosive, and too much open for future admins to prosecute Obama's admin for mishandling of many things (like the finance crisis, etc).
ReplyDeleteThese are the emails I was referring to on the thread re: Why won't Obama proscute Bush et al.
ReplyDeleteThey are being recovered, but THEN they have to be archived before ANYONE gets a look at them.
The wheels of justice turn slowly. It will be a year at least.
Remember that Obama doesn't decide whether or not to prosecute. Holder needs EVIDENCE, as all lawyers do, in order to decide to prosecute.
That whoosh of air you just felt? That was the collective sphincter tightening of Cheney, Rove and Bush.
Santa came early this year, my sweet progressives:-)
Oh, and a shout out to our resident troll! See ya' in 2012, friend, when we stomp your ass AGAIN! 9,000,000 MORE people voted for Obama than the lizard and his tundra tart.
And that was before she quit her job and made an ass of herself on an international level.
WE WON. IT'S OUR COUNTRY AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BACK.
Was the NSA trying to make out that it wasn't illegally recording every email in the country at that time?
ReplyDeleteLost? My ass!
Yes Anon@5:22pm the wheels turn very, very slowly. I am sure Holder will find evidence but I am not going to start celebrating just yet. I think you are right too about Rove, Cheney and Dubyah. They have to be thinking "WTF, this cannot be happending to us". And the fact that the Brits are calling out Tony Blair has to add to their shall we say "concern".
ReplyDeleteHow in the world did 22 million emails disappear? Can't be GW's he's too stupid to operate a computer, but they could sure be are buddy Dickie's. Of all those assholes I think he is the one I want to see in a orange jump suit. He was the mastermind for Iraq. He is a very evil man & has gotten away with murder & is responsible for the deaths of many. My guess is that they are so inept they didn't know how to permanently delete them. KARMA.
ReplyDeleteYou search emails by key word or name to find what you need. It takes a bit of time, but can be done.
ReplyDeleteO/T Just heard that Scarah is afraid of cats! She can visit my house anyday. I can even rent a few. Anyone interested?
Did anyone have to pay for these emails? Just curious. My bet is these emails did not disappear, they were just buried. What a bunch of assholes. Between news of this and the Lieberman crap, I'm totally pissed off at our government this evening.
ReplyDeleteI'm more interested in the Palin emails
ReplyDeletezane said...
ReplyDeleteHow in the world did 22 million emails disappear.
The same way the votes in FL disappeared, or appeared for pat scumcannon to get those jackasses "elected"...rove, cheney, wolfowitz,rumsfeld are all WAR CRIMINALS, ELECTION STEALERS that make acorn look like amateur punks.
They disappeared because Chimp et al hired their GOPPER tedch guy (who was killed in an airplane accident on his way to testify against them) to clean all of their emails out.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't "lost". They used that word euphimistically. They were HIDDEN and wiped as clean you can.
The guy with the servers DIED.
Anon 6:09
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree....Lieberman is just making me nuts. I avoid CNN & MSNBC now & even Huffington is pissing me off. It just seems that the dems are just letting this happen & patronizing this asshole. What does he want...what do any of them want....more money, more power, deals. Argh.
I read on MSNBC that these emails won't be available for public review until at least 2014.
ReplyDeletePalin's got nothin' on these slimeballs...but she's catching up fast. $arah does seem to have the Cheney (lack of) ethics without his smarts. She also has his sneer -- and the plastic surgery has made it more pronounced, LOL.
Great news! Great post! Great hopes for truth and accountability!
ReplyDeleteThere are still plenty of missing emails with a retrieval attempt in process. Rachel
Maddow had a segment with an executive of the National Security Archive. The woman also said the Clinton administration installed an effective archiving system after they and preceding administrations had problems. Bush turned it off.
22 million emails pales in comparison to Rumsfeld announcement that trillionsof dollars were missing on 9/10/01......hours before the only side of the Pentagon which was recently reinforced to sustain a missile hit was hit by something on 9/11. Oh and that part of the Pentagon handled ................. Wait for it .............. The acccounting of those said trilllions.
ReplyDeleteWhoa it's a good thing those 22mil emails didn't surface in Alaska or it would've cost the country (gets out calculator) $81,400,000 -Ozmud
ReplyDeleteWe should have paid Russian hackers to get them and post them long ago. It worked wonders for the climate-deniers.
ReplyDelete