When did George W. Bush delete emails? The White House responded to a demand from Congress to release emails regarding an investigation into the partisan firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The White House estimated that up to five million of these emails had been deleted. But how did His aides handle the situation?
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George W. Bush’s Private Email Server
The Bush administration was sued in 2007 by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington after 22 million emails went missing from his private email server. The lawsuit alleged that the Bush administration failed to forward the emails to the official White House email address and violated the Presidential Records Act. The State Department, which holds the emails, has refused to release them but has been compelled to release the emails of Hillary Clinton.
The White House, however, did not pursue the matter and the Senate committee did not investigate the matter further. This lack of transparency led to some journalists complaining about the lack of transparency from the White House. However, The Washington news remained steadfast in accepting the White House’s explanation for the IT problems.
His Aides’ Handling Of E-mails
The Bush administration’s handling of e-mails is now under scrutiny. The government is reviewing a large number of the former president’s emails, including those sent and received during the last two years. Several Bush aides were found guilty of contempt of Congress for failing to provide such information when subpoenas were issued.
Despite repeated warnings, the Bush administration did nothing to preserve the e-mails. As early as 2002, top aides blew off e-mail preservation. The Bush White House eventually admitted that millions of e-mails had been lost. A lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims the Bush administration knew about the problem, but did nothing to correct the situation.
His E-mail Deletion
The controversy over George Bush’s e-mail deletion is not new, but the reasons for it are. The president and his vice president deleted more than two million emails from a private server while they were in the White House. Although it was thought that all of the emails were deleted, many of them were in fact not deleted, but mislabeled. These emails were later released by watchdog groups.
A large number of deleted e-mails were recovered from backup storage systems. The federal government has reached an agreement with two nonprofit groups that had sued for access to emails via the Freedom of Information Act. However, the government is not likely to restore all of the emails due to funding limitations. Regardless of the results, there is still an ongoing controversy over the e-mails.
His E-mail Back-Up System
A White House investigation into President Bush’s e-mail backup system has found that no backup tapes were in place before October 2003. In fact, a number of White House e-mails were not backed up at all. The White House’s spokesman, Tony Fratto, has even denied that any e-mails were missing.
His E-mail Archive
The release of the George Bush e-mail archive has raised a lot of questions. The Bush administration actively used email as a tool for communication, which is why the release of the archive has generated such interest from historians and analysts. While the archive does not include emails from the president to his vice president, it does contain discussions with lower-level employees and cabinet secretaries.
The amount of e-mails in the Bush e-mail archive is staggering. If all the e-mails were published, they would fill up about 600 million printed pages, or 550 to 580 terabytes. While the amount of data would appear unmanageable, it is not beyond the reach of modern technology. By 2021, presidential security restrictions will have expired, and the archive will be available to researchers. But until then, the process will be painfully slow, and it could take years for the bulk of the e-mails to be released to the public.
