The Associated Press
The White House abandoned an automatic archiving system for its e-mail in 2002 and did not replace it, says a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Executive Office of the President.
The suit by the National Security Archive, a private group, is the latest effort to find out whether the Bush administration lost millions of electronic messages.
White House e-mail problems first came to light during a special prosecutor’s investigation into the leaking of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity and again during congressional inquiries into the role of presidential aides in firings of U.S. attorneys.
Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democratic House committee chairman, has set a deadline of Monday for White House counsel Fred Fielding to turn over a White House-prepared analysis of the issue. A second private organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, sued last May in a so-far unsuccessful effort to force the administration to release records that provide an explanation.
(Original Article)