Ed Brayton has a post up about the ‘missing’ white house email.
Quoting the Washington Post:
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.
If they successfully argue that the suit is moot, the emails are about to get buried. Again from the Post (emphasis by Ed):
Once the e-mails are transferred to the National Archives, federal law allows them to be requested under the Freedom of Information Act after a five-year interval.
Best of both worlds. Since the press won’t be able to wade through these for quite some time, I think the only legal hope is some kind of legal action,… either a criminal proceeding or some kind of congressional investigation. If it winds up being the latter, who gets to argue privilege… is it the current White House, or does George get to argue privilege himself?
Wether it be Bush white house documents or torture, or
guantanamo, or a $700billion bailout for wall street banks.
The Bush presidency will be the gift that keeps on giving for the next half century. After all Nixon’s tapes just got released this year almost 40 years late. Young people are saying Nixon who? did what? The next generation will be
saying America What? Never heard of it! Isn’t it kind of
like the lost city of atlantis.