Washington, D.C., January 14, 2009 – The United States District Court for the District of Columbia today granted the National Security Archive's emergency motion for an extended preservation order to protect missing White House e-mails. With the transition from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration taking place in six days, and all the records of the Bush White House scheduled for a physical transfer to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on that same day, the Court has directed the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to search all its computer work stations and has ordered EOP employees to surrender any media in their possession that may contain e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005.
“There is nothing like a deadline to clarify the issues,” said Archive Director Tom Blanton. “In six days the Bush Executive Office of the President will be gone and without this order, their records may disappear with them. The White House will complain about the last minute challenge, but this is a records crisis of the White House's own making.”
Counsel for the Archive, Sheila Shadmand from Jones Day made clear: “The White House has been on notice since we filed our lawsuit a year and a half ago that they would have to retrieve and preserve their e-mail. Instead of coming clean and telling the public what they have been doing to solve the crisis, they refused to say anything. At this point, it is critical to preserve evidence that can help get to the bottom of the problem and prevent it from happening again.”
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