National Security Archive on WH tape erasures

National Security Archive Update, January 16, 2008

White House Admits No Back-Up Tapes for E-mail Before
October 2003

Responds to Court's Questions; Claims Not to Know Whether Critical
E-mails Were Erased

Despite Previously Acknowledging That as Many as 5 Million
E-mails are Missing, 

White House Now Tells a Different Story

Washington DC, January 16, 2008 - In response to a federal court order issued last week, the White House late last

night refused to acknowledge any missing e-mails, instead stating that it "has

undertaken an independent effort to determine whether there may be anomalies in

Exchange e-mail counts" during the 2003-2005 period. A sworn statement by the

Chief Information Officer of the White House Office of Administration filed with

U.S. federal court just before midnight admitted the White House had recycled its

e-mail back-up tapes before October 2003 and only began retaining the back-ups

starting at that point.

"It strikes me as odd that they recognized a problem and changed their practice

in 2003 to start saving the backups, but four-and-a-half years later they still

have not yet figured out whether or what e-mails were deleted," commented Meredith

Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel. "It also is troubling that the problem may

have started before October 2003, and they acknowledge that back-ups prior to

that period were recycled and are gone."

"Two years after a special prosecutor concluded that key e-mails were missing from

the White House system administered by the Office of Administration, the White House

astonishingly now admits it has no back-up tapes from before October 2003 and doesn't

know if any e-mails are missing," said Tom Blanton, director of the National

Security Archive.

The loss of White House e-mails first surfaced on January 23, 2006, when prosecutors

in the Scooter Libby matter informed Mr. Libby's defense counsel that they were

unable to provide copies of e-mail records "because not all email records from the

Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time

periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House

computer system." The full scope of the problem was not appreciated until April 2007,

when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a report

stating that over 5 million e-mails were missing throughout the Executive Office

of the President. At that time, White House spokesperson Dana Perino acknowledged

the lost e-mails.

Sheila L. Shadmand, counsel for the Archive, commented: "It is a victory to finally

get the White House to respond to the Archive�s claims, but somehow I suspect we

will have many battles ahead of us to preserve the documentary history of the

government for the American public."

"This declaration may mean that records about policy and decisions in the Executive

Office of the President are not entirely lost, but in many respects it raises more

questions. We still do not know what was lost, why it was lost, and what steps we

have to take to recover it--assuming it is still recoverable," explained Ms. Fuchs.

On January 8, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the U.S. District Court for the District

of Columbia ordered the White House to answer a series of questions about the missing

e-mails, asserting that the information was "time-sensitive" because any back-ups

of the missing e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden with the

passage of time." Judge Kennedy had previously ordered the preservation of e-mail

back-up tapes held by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in the consolidated

lawsuits filed by the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility

and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

National Security Archive Update, January 8, 2008

White House Must Answer Questions About
Missing White House E-mails, Magistrate Judge Rules

http://www.nsarchive.org 

Washington DC, January 8, 2008 - In an Order issued today, Magistrate Judge
Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
ordered the White House to answer questions about over 5 million missing
e-mails generated between 2003-2005. Noting that the need for information
the missing e-mails is "time-sensitive" because of the risk that stored
copied of the e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden
with the passage of time," the Court demanded answers in a sworn declaration
by January 13, 2008 about the location of the missing e-mails.

"To date, the White House has evaded answering questions about whether it
permanently destroyed over 5 million e-mails about issues such as Hurricane
Katrina, the firing of United States Attorneys, and the exposure of Valerie Plame's
identity as a CIA agent," commented Meredith Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel.
"This Order will force the Executive Office of the President to tell the public
whether it really erased key records of the nation's history or whether it has
ade any effort to preserve the information."

The order issued today come in National Security Archive v. Executive Office
of the President (EOP), et al. Previously, Judge Kennedy ordered the preservation
of EOP backup tapes and the consolidation of this case (filed September 5, 2007)
with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) v. Executive Office
of the President, et al. (filed September 25, 2007).

To date, the White House has had the following to say about the missing e-mails:

"I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost"
- Press Gaggle by Dana Perino (April 13, 2007)

"[W]e are aware that there could have been some emails that were not
automatically archived because of a technical issue."
- Press Briefing by Dana Perino (April 16, 2007)

"CREW has yet to provide any basis for their assertions -- be it their original
assertion, or their new claim. We are aware that some e-mails may not have been
automatically archived in the past, but they may be available on backup tapes.
Unlike what the liberal group CREW has asserted, we've never been without a backup
system. The Office of Administration at the White House has been maintaining and
preserving backup tapes for the official email system."
- Scott Stanzel, White House Spokesman