This is complete and total BS. No organization would allow e-mail to be stored on the workstation. It would be stored in the server e-mail store, which would be backed up daily.
And if the Federal Government really allows behavior that would likely get any private company prosecuted (failing to maintain official records) and allowed her to download the messages to her hard drive and erase them from the server, then they can send me the hard drive. I am a forensic computer examiner, and as long as the disks are not physically destroyed or deliberately wiped, I can recover most if not all that was lost.
The IRS promised to release Lerner email’s until the DOJ read them and found out THE FOREIGNER would be in a whole lot of trouble. Then they had to either erase them or have him change his NOT EVEN A SMIDGEN to A WHOLE LOT OF SMIDGEN.