White House Sued Over Deleted E-Mails

12 Oct 2007 // The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a request for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court to compel the White House to preserve backup copies of e-mails deleted since March 2003.

In September, the group sued the Executive Office of the President, the Office of Administration, and the National Archives and Records Administration, challenging the administration's failure to keep and preserve millions of e-mails deleted from White House servers since March 2003, as a violation of federal and presidential recordkeeping laws.

CREW's general counsel, Anne Weisman, said the group sought the restraining order when the White House failed to provide assurances that it was keeping backup copies of the communications. Instead, White House lawyers would say only that the administration is preserving records dating to the September 2007 filing of CREW's lawsuit.