In an interview with Damon Porter of Channel Web Network, Anne Weismann, a former Justice Department attorney who now serves as chief counsel for CREW, states that "sources close to Congressional and private investigations of the missing e-mail scandal had informed her that more than twice as many e-mails [of the 5M possibly acknowledged to by Perino and reported by the media] were unaccounted for by the Bush administration." That's more than 10 million emails lost.
So, over ten million--that's 10,000,000 'accidental' deletions. Crew has secured an order securing all backup from further destruction, but Weismann seemed to hold little hope that a backup existed in good condition.
"I have a sinking fear that the backups we want have been overwritten. Millions of e-mails, gone. Obviously, if they're already destroyed ..." she said, trailing off with the implications hanging in the air."
There's a few questions that bear some scrutiny besides the fact that 10M email records were deleted:
(
- What time periods do the deletions cover?
(2) Whose accounts do the deletions cover?
(3) At what time did the deletions occur?
(4) Did the deletions cover one particular drive on which information was stored, or did they go across many drives?
(5) Who was responsible for the deletion (deletions)?
(6) How was the email deleted? Was it deleted once (accidental) or was it deleted and they written over 10x times (a secure deletion that erases not only the references to the material, but the material itself)?
(7) Why wasn't this email immediately recovered? Why hasn't it been recovered? What attempts have been made to recover the email?
(8) Who has been held responsible for the destruction of government records?
Am just quasi-knowledgeable about these tech issues, but perhaps some techies can weigh in with questions a reporter should ask.
These are questions I would ask, but the sad point is that no one is asking them. What we have here is gross incompetence covering up gross misdeeds or gross incompetence. Somehow that's acceptable from the highest office in the land, but wouldn't be acceptable in any other office in the land.
Oh, CREW also notes that "Of course, the court's order is limited to copies that were created with the intention of being backups. We also think it would be appropriate to look at other copies that might exist." Sad.