Bush White House failed to archive most e-mails for 21 days

The George W. Bush administration failed to archive 83 percent of e-mails for 21 days during a two-year period, according to watchdog groups that retrieved the information in lawsuit settlements.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit against the Bush White House in 2007 after discovering the administration could not account for millions of e-mails. In 2009, the Obama White House settled the case, agreeing to audit archived messages and those restored from backup tapes for 21 separate days between 2003 and 2005. Those days were identified as having a suspiciously low amount of e-mail traffic. The comparison revealed that 83 percent of the e-mails on the backup tapes were not included in the archived collection and would have been lost if not for the lawsuits.