The White House said yesterday that it could not find an unknown number of e-mails written by Karl Rove and at least 21 other officials, including some correspondence that has been sought in connection with the firings of eight US attorneys, prompting Democrats to express doubt that the e-mails were accidentally lost.This whole thing is ridiculous. They weren't storing emails or monitoring any other traffic? So someone in the White House could be spitting out all kinds of secret information to anybody they want via any unblocked email and there would never be a record (or it's easily erased). Yeah, I'd call that a small oversight. After all, you're only the freaking government! There's better internet controls even at some small companies.
The White House did not say how many e-mails were lost or whether any pertained to the firings. But an independent group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said yesterday that it had researched the matter and believes that the White House has lost more than 5 million e-mails sent between 2003 and 2005.
Anne Weismann , the chief counsel for the citizens group , said in a telephone interview that many e-mails were lost because the White House did not put in place a system for archiving them after it dropped one that had been used by the Clinton administration. "They didn't keep a backup," Weismann said. "There was no way to ensure they were not modified or deleted in some way."
White House officials said at briefings yesterday that an undetermined number of e-mails were lost because they were sent by White House officials using nongovernment accounts, such as one run by the Republican National Committee.
Update: Looks like the story gets even better:
Responding to questions about the e-mails — some sent through the Republican National Committee and other private accounts and later deleted — White House spokesperson Dana Perino said, "I will admit it. We screwed up and we're trying to fix it." But Perino insisted, "There is no indication of any improper [action]."First off, if you admit there was a screw-up, you've implied that there was some improper action. Otherwise there wouldn't have been a screwup. And it's nice that they're "considering hiring a forensics expert." Maybe by the time they actually do so, the guilty parties will have completed cleaning up their messes, erased any remaining evidence, destroyed all computers linking them to any improper activity, and/or fled the country. They'd be better off letting a team of monkeys take the investigation from here.
Asked about reports that as many as 5 million e-mail messages from the 1,700 employees of the White House could be missing, she said, "We're looking into that." Perino explained that the White House converted its e-mail to Microsoft's Outlook system in 2002 to 2003, which might have caused some mail to have been lost. She also said the White House is considering hiring a forensics expert to find the lost messages and a review by the White House counsel's office is ongoing.
