Posted on 10/19/2007 7:30:34 PM PDT by BGHater
A U.S. magistrate on Friday rejected arguments by the Bush administration and urged a federal judge to order the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola said it is necessary to hold out the threat of a contempt-of-court citation to ensure that White House personnel safeguard backup tapes of electronic messages that may have been deleted.
Whether to issue the order is up to U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy. The Bush administration has 10 days to say why Kennedy should not order preservation of electronic communications by White House officials and aides. Kennedy had referred the issue to the magistrate for a recommendation.
Facciola's report to the judge stems from a controversy dating back nearly two years over missing White House e-mails. An ethics advocacy group says the White House has deleted millions of e-mails and the private organization is suing the Executive Office of the President in an attempt to force the government to reconstruct any lost messages from backup tapes.
The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says it has been unable to get assurances from the White House that all backup tapes will be preserved. Nor is it clear whether some backup tapes have already been destroyed, or recycled, resulting in taping over messages that were already there.
The Federal Records Act and the President Records Act require that all e-mails be saved.
In a hearing before Facciola on Wednesday, the Justice Department argued strenuously against the course of action the magistrate ended up taking.
Justice Department lawyers offered to have the government file a sworn declaration stating that the White House Office of Administration is safeguarding all backup materials.
"Unlike a court order, a declaration is not punishable by contempt," the magistrate wrote. "In other words, without such an order, destruction of the backup media would be without consequences."
Facciola proposed a broadly worded order directing the Executive Office of the President to preserve copies of e-mails "presently in their possession or under their custody or control."
In early 2006, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald raised the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation involving the outing of Valerie Plame could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.
The issue arose again early this year amid the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys. Aides to Bush improperly used Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts for official business. An undetermined number of e-mails were lost.
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said the magistrate "is not leaving them any wiggle room. He would require them to preserve copies of e-mails no matter how they are kept — on backup tapes, DVDs, disks, in whatever form, and prohibit them from keeping them in some way that makes it difficult to use them."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined to comment.
Federal Judge May Be Told To Pound Sand. News at 11.
CUCK FREW.
1) This is because the democrat/Clinton/liberal/”we are honest”/socialist White House DELETED (while under investigations!) many millions of Al Gore’s and Hillary’s emails.
2) So, what will be this judge’s rewards under a Clinton administration? DOinJustice? Supremem Court? Appellate Court?
Didn’t Al Gore, as Vice-President, lose all of them?
Sad, isn't it? Al Gore invented the Internet, yet he lost all of his email. Go figure.
Predictably, he was appointed by clinton in 1997.
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/facciola-bio.html
If I didn’t delete most of my emails regularly, my computer would be very unhappy.
This is total nonsense.
CREW”An ethics advocacy group “ funded by Soros , run by Hillary.
Notice they cite that Fitz expressed concern in the Plame case that some eails had been missing—this is crap from CREW—It later turned out that the emails had been misfiled by the outside archivists.
The president should order the judge to shove his political witch hunt where the sun don’t shine.
I don’t have a problem with this. These emails are property of we the people. Just as any corporate email belongs to the shareholders. ALL admins. should be required to keep the backup tapes.
Then the Judicial branch and the Legislative Branch will need to be told to save ALL their emails too!
We have the right to look at them!!!
Maybe someone with a better education in law than I have can answer this question: where, exactly, would a federal judge get the authority to order something like this of the Executive Branch? Is this just another instance of judges acting like gods?
Even a mediocre IT person could accidentally solve this problem. Oops!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20691
so what. This administration ain’t scared of some pipsqueak activest judge.
More on Clinton:
Amid thousands of “lost” White House emails are some reportedly involving Bill Clinton & Al Gore
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a390502577e6d.htm
With Congress planning more hearings into the White House’s cover-up of a huge gap in subpoenaed e-mail, it’s no wonder that the nation’s chief executive says he avoids using e-mail.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20707
Let's see if the Democrats will strike that bargain?
Of course we will change this requirement should another Democrat ever inhabit the WH. Which is hopefully never.
Where are the secret documents Sandy Burglar stuffed into his socks? Where were Hillary’s billing records hidden? Who hired Craig Livingstone? Where are the files from Vince Foster’s office that Hillary secreted away? What would Clinton do and why did his White House purchase supersized shredders? Hmmmmm???? I dunno. I cannot recall. I have no specific recollecion. There is no controlling legal authority!!!
And I never had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski, not once, not ever!
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