A federal magistrate has rejected claims from the White House and recommended the issuance of a court order against the White House to ensure the preservation of e-mails. The Federal Records Act and the President Records Act require that all e-mails be saved. There is evidence that the White House has deleted millions of e-mails and the White House wanted to avoid an actual order that could lead to a finding of contempt if they violate the ruling. For the full story, click here It is an ironic element of this Administration. While struggling for “total transparency” of citizen records and communications, the Administration has been hostile to any review of its own records by the courts or Congress — and has been criticized for the destruction of many protected communications. It appears that the courts may have finally lost patience and could soon issue a binding order against the White House.
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Just so this doesn’t disappear down the memory hole:
Tuesday, this week judge Facciola issued a show-cause order to the WH with an expiration date of today. I haven’t ascertained whether there was any response.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080318/forensic_copy_order.pdf
Still no word as to the Executive’s response that I could find.
This will be interesting news very soon.
DW, I thought the White House considered itself ABOVE such things as show-cause orders. Then again, it also considers itself to be above the LAW as well, judging how it has behaved in the last few years. But you’re correct, it should be interesting news very soon. I’m looking forward to this one.
Not so interesting I am sorry to have to relate, Susan.
The White House has responded and their claim is that the relevant hard drives have been destroyed and they don’t say what information was transferred to new drives.
I suppose the Magistrate can request production of the “destroyed” drives…but I doubt he will do so.
This brings things to a close, unless the folks at CREW can come up with something.
DW, while that news is highly suspicious, at least to me, I’m afraid it is hardly surprising. I have to admit I gave up expecting this administration to behave in an honorable or ethical fashion after they publicly dodged the whole waterboarding question. All we can do is count the days until a new — and I hope far more enlightened — administration takes the place of this one.
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3622/81/
interesting discussion on some of the issues above.
Noted also is that Magistrate Judge Facciola was the judge in the McPeek v Ashcroft e-discovery case.
Does anyone actually believe that all these numerous documents, files, emails, and videotapes alleged to be unavailable are actually missing and were NEVER backed-up – someplace? Or, if there comes a day when it becomes drastically important to produce such, for some other purpose, that they wouldn’t magically appear?
Patty C,
This judge Facciola is nationally known for his work in the relatively new field of “ediscovery”. I imagine there is an uncommon amount of interest in how he will deal with the government’s claim.
A somewhat similar case he decided in 2007 was Peskoff v Faber. He took a sceptical position toward a claim of hard-to-produce evidence.
http://www.ediscoverylaw.com/2007/03/articles/case-summaries/holding-that-accessible-data-must-be-produced-at-the-cost-of-the-producing-party-court-orders-defendant-to-conduct-further-email-search/
DW