Court Smacks Down Bush Administration in White House Emails Case

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The Bush administration suffered a major legal defeat on Monday when a federal court denied the administration’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit that has arisen from the possible loss of several million White House emails. The ruling allows the plaintiffs in the case, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive (NSA), to move forward with their legal efforts to force the recovery of the missing emails and the adoption of a more reliable email archiving system.

Meredith Fuchs, the NSA’s general counsel, says the White House’s pending motion to dismiss had been a “hold up” that prevented anything else from happening in the case. “Now that roadblock is gone, so we have the opportunity now to try to take more aggressive action in the case,” she says, adding that the litigation will probably “heat up” in the months to come.

The emails in question, which could number in the millions, are from between 2003 and 2005 and could include information about the runup to the war in Iraq and the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert CIA officer. (Need to catch up? Read our full coverage of the missing White House emails story.)

Despite the plaintiff’s victory in this latest ruling, the Bush administration has been largely successful in running out the clock on the emails controversy. The NSA and CREW first filed suit in September 2007, several months after Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said she “wouldn’t rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost.” It is now a near certainty that the ongoing litigation surrounding the missing emails will not be resolved before the Obama administration takes office in January 2009. When Obama enters the White House, he could continue on the path the Bush administration has set out, or settle the case, as the Clinton administration eventually did when watchdog groups sued over its handling of emails in the 1990s.

The NSA has sued every president since Reagan on the issue of record-keeping. Fuchs, the NSA’s general counsel, says Obama could send a positive signal by not adopting the Bush administration’s obstructionist attitude with regards to the missing emails. “It’s not uncommon for a new administration to change position [on ongoing litigation],” she says. “[Obama] can make clear from day one that his administration is going to be responsible and preserve its records. He can support the National Archives in its effort to restore the records from the Bush White House, so that Congress, the courts, and ultimately the public will be able to learn how decisions were made.”

There is some indication already that the Obama administration may consider moving in a different direction related to the record-keeping issue. One of Obama’s campaign promises was to “nullify the Bush attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult.” Fuchs says this “shows they believe in accountability in the White House.” But repealing obscure Bush administration executive orders regarding presidential records would be a far cry from acceding to CREW and NSA’s demands for the costly recovery of missing emails and the even-more-costly creation of a functional email archiving system. Mother Jones has asked the Obama press office if the President-elect has plans to continue the Bush administration’s legal strategy with regards to the missing emails. We’ll let you know what we hear.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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