From the AP:
The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.
Congressional investigators looking into the administration’s firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys’ ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.
Democrats also have been asking if White House officials are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via nongovernmental accounts to get around a law requiring preservation - and eventual disclosure - of presidential records. The announcement of the lost e-mails - a rare admission of error from the Bush White House at a delicate time for the administration’s relations with Democratically controlled Capitol Hill - gave new fodder for inquiry on this front.
Lost them? Oops, did that pile of sensitive documents fall into that industrial strength cross cut shredder? My bad. OK, it is time to bring in the forensics folks and EnCase the sh*t out of their email servers.
Tags: Email Archive, Data Security, Computer Forensics, Bush
