When CREW discovered in 2008 that millions of emails had gone missing from Bush White House servers – and that the administration had been aware of this problem since 2005 – CREW and the National Security Archive sued the White House and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), challenging their failure to take any action. Today, after a long-running legal battle to find the missing emails and institute a functioning archiving system, CREW and the NSA came to a settlement with the Obama White house.

The settlement terms dictate that a total of 94 days of missing emails will be restored and sent to NARA for preservation. These records will eventually be accessible to the public. The White House will also continue to provide CREW and the NSA with records that document:

• The causes of the email problem,
• The Bush White House’s response to that problem,
• The options the Bush White House considered for preserving electronic records, and
• A description of the current archiving system.

The Obama administration has already produced thousands of pages of documents relating to these issues, which CREW posts here for public review.

CREW writes analyses of these documents as we receive them, and so far has determined the Bush White House clearly lied about its knowledge of the problem and deliberately ignored the problem. We hope future documents released by the White House can answer some of the most pressing questions surrounding this affair:

• Why did then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers do nothing when the Office of Administration told her of this problem?
• Why did the Bush White House abandon its proposed solution system after spending millions of dollars to develop it?
• Did the missing email issue impact the Bush administration’s response to the DOJ’s investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson leak?

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, lamented that we may never learn the full truth but thanked the Obama administration for living up to their promises of transparency:

We may never know exactly what happened to all the missing emails, and which Bush administration officials were involved in the coverup, but we do know the American public never got the full story. The Obama administration, which inherited the lawsuits and the dysfunctional White House email system, has done a terrific job straightening out the mess. Thanks to the Obama White House, a critical part of our nation’s missing history will be restored. This is yet another example of the administration living up to its promise of accountability and transparency.

Click here to read the terms of agreement (PDF).

As we mentioned yesterday, CREW was holding a press conference yesterday to discuss the lawsuit we're filing with several historians to preserve the records of Vice President Dick Cheney.  The Dallas Morning News was one of the outlets that provided coverage of our call with reporters:

CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a conference call that the vice president’s office has failed to file classified documents and refused to allow the National Archives to oversee proper filing and management of such records because Mr. Cheney says his office is not part of the executive branch and is attached, if at all, to the congressional branch.

Ms. Sloan also said that e-mails from the vice president have gone missing, which the White House previously confirmed.

Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief counsel, said the vice president might argue that a 2001 executive order by President George W. Bush refers to “executive records” of the vice president, thereby allowing him to claim distinction between his executive and legislative roles.

The national archivist has also taken the view that a vice president’s records are personal, not presidential records, Ms. Weismann said. If this view went unchallenged, Mr. Cheney would not be held accountable until after he left office in January 2009 and could do as he wished with his personal records, she said.

“We have brought this lawsuit to ensure the records of the American people are preserved,” Ms. Weismann said. “Without judicial intervention this loss is especially acute.”

Today, CREW, together with historians Stanley Kutler and Martin Sherwin and three historical and archival organizations will file a lawsuit against Vice President Cheney, the Office of the Vice President, the archivist and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The suit is based on what the vice president must preserve for history as part of the papers of this administration. 

CREW, along with plaintiffs Stanley Kutler, Martin Sherwin and Anna Nelson will discuss the lawsuit TODAY at a 1:30 PM EDT TELE-NEWS CONFERENCE.

CALL-IN NUMBER 1-877-795-3613 CONFIRMATION CODE: 4362289

The Washington Post has an article today previewing the lawsuit:

The goal, proponents say, is to protect a treasure trove of information about national security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic wiretapping, energy policy, and other major issues that could be hidden from the public if Cheney adheres to his view that he is not part of the executive branch. Extending the argument, scholars say, Cheney could assert that he is not required to make his papers public after leaving office. Access to the documents is crucial because he is widely considered to be the most influential vice president in U.S. history, they note. 

Although the Presidential Records Act (PRA) requires the vice president to preserve all the records he creates and receives while fulfilling his statutory, constitutional, ceremonial and other duties, the White House and NARA take the view that the vice president need not preserve congressional records.

According to Vice President Dick Cheney, his office is not part of the executive branch, but rather is attached to the legislative branch. As a result, his official papers will not fall under the PRA and will not be preserved as part of our nation’s historical records. This loss is especially acute given the prominent role Vice President Cheney has played in the Bush administration.

Once filed, we will post the complaint, as well as documents in support of its preliminary injunction motion.

As Anne Weissman notes below, there are more records of Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House. We just don't have them -- yet.

In the meantime, we have put the visitor records that we do have from the White House on line at www.governmentdocs.org, the recently launched online government document database, This link will take you to a search of "Abramoff" and "NARA" (National Archives and Records Administration). You can check the records for yourself.

And, as soon as the new documents are forthcoming, we'll upload them, too.