White House Responds to Questions Posed by Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola Regarding Backup Media and Email

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. Executive Office of the President, No. 1:07-cv-01707-HHK (D.D.C. Jan. 15, 2008)

On January 15, 2008, a declaration authored by the White House’s Chief Information Officer was filed in response to the Court’s January 8 Order, discussed in our January 10, 2008 post on the subject.  The declaration responds to four questions posed by Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola regarding the backup media being preserved by the White House for purposes of the litigation.  Among other things, the CIO confirms that emails sent or received during the 2003-2005 time frame should be contained on existing backup tapes.  However, the CIO states that her office “does not know if any emails were not properly preserved in the archiving process.”

The CIO further states that her office is undertaking an “independent effort” to determine whether there may be “anomalies” in Exchange email accounts for any particular days resulting from the potential failure to properly archive emails for the 2003-2005 time period.  The CIO states that this “independent assessment” is expected to be completed in the near term.

Click to view a Washington Post article on this most recent filing and for additional background.