Cafferty: White House Illegally Deleted Over Ten Million Emails

 

Jack Cafferty: A government watchdog group now says more than 10 million White House emails are missing. Citizens for the Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) described this massive hole in White House email records last April. At that time they thought the number was 5 million - Now they say it is more than 10 million emails. In one of the great understatements of this here Christmas season, the group says that this revised estimate - quote - highlights that this is a very serious and systematic problem at the White House - unquote. Both CREW and another private group called the National Security archive are suing the Bush administration to try to get information about all these missing emails. The White House email problems first came to light during special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity.

It’s worth noting what a critical time period these missing emails represent. Why it’s from March of 2003 to October 2005. That would include the start of the Iraq War right up through the aftermath of Katrina. As the director of one of these groups put it: It doesn’t get more historically valuable than that. Given the way the White House handled both the war and Katrina, it’s also quite convenient that suddenly this mountain of stuff is missing. By the way it’s against the law that these emails be destroyed or lost. They are supposed to be saved. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 mandates White House communications be preserved. Another law broken — Another example of nobody doing a damn thing about it. Crooks and Liars