White House finds 22 million Bush-era emails

The case of the missing Bush-era emails has finally been solved. The White House and two nonprofit groups announced a settlement Monday in a lawsuit over 22 million emails that were missing during the Bush administration because of poor labeling and other technical problems.

The National Security Archive, a historical records group, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog organization, sued the Executive Office of the President in 2007 to get access to millions of White House emails missing between March 2003 and October 2005.

The Bush White House eventually found the 22 million messages that had been mislabeled. The two advocacy groups said spotty electronic record keeping suggested that many more emails might still be missing, leading them to continue pressing their legal case.

"This settlement means that the Obama administration is trying to clean up the mess that the Bush administration left behind," said Meredith Fuchs, counsel for the archives group. "They want to move on; they don't intend to have this kind of problem."

Taking the role of sleuths, White House contractors restored 61 days of missing emails. The administration has promised to restore an additional 33 days of email records, a part of Monday's legal settlement.

It's unlikely this problem will happen again. The White House has developed a new system for preserving electronic records that should keep the emails online. Still, it's unclear how many of these restored emails will see the light of day. The collection is being reviewed by the National Archives and Records Administration, and it may take several years to complete.

For more on the White House emails:
- see this Washington Post article

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