22M missing Bush e-mails found

WASHINGTON (AP) — Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days’ worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record-keeping system.

The two private groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive — said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails because they will now go through the National Archives’ process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won’t be available until 2014 at the earliest.

The tally of missing e-mails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House’s failure to install a properly working electronic record- keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

The two private organizations say there is not yet a final count on the extent of missing White House e-mail, and there may never be a complete tally.