Republican National Committee No Longer Interested In Retrieving Lost White House Emails

February 27, 2008 9:27 a.m. EST

Washington, DC (AHN) - The Republican National Committee informed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee it will no longer attempt to retrieve lost White House emails. The decision to drop the search was made after the committee realized the missing electronic mails could never be recovered.

The RNC previously said it will try to restore emails received from 2001 to 2003, mostly communications with White House officials. RNC had a policy of deleting all emails after 30 days. Some of the emails may have references to the start of the Iraq war.

House committee chairman Henry Waxman said, "The result is a potential enormous gap in the historical record."

Until 2004, the RNC removed all old emails from its computers, although it did not apply to White House emails. With RNC's admission it could no longer recover the old electronic files, it may put into question the Bush administration's compliance with statutory requirements to keep official White House records to preserve history and as evidence in future legal action.

Aside from the RNC staff, around 50 White House employees also used the RNC email system not only for White House communications, but also for other official business.

Lost emails are not exclusive to the RNC. An ethics watchdog, CREW, said the Executive Office of the President has lost more than five million emails between March 2003 to October 2005, although those emails are not related at all to the RNC emails.