White House Says Emails Lost Due to Tech Glitch

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Yesterday, I posted on CREW’s revelation that there were as many as five million emails missing from the White House’s system. These were emails totally separate from the emails on RNC-issued email accounts. They were in the White House system.

Today, during the White House press gaggle, Dana Perino gave an explanation of sorts:

But there was a conversion sometime between 2002 and 2003 to convert people that were using Lotus Notes when we first arrived to Microsoft Outlook. And I know that the tech people worked to get us all transferred over. We had to save our Word documents and all to make sure that they weren’t lost in that transition.

I don’t have a specific number for you. Again, I wouldn’t rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we’ll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

From the press gaggle:

Q Do you have any further information on the suggestion that some of the official — the emails from the official WHO —

MS. PERINO: No, I’m looking into that. There was an assertion yesterday by one of the groups, outside groups, that outside of — take apart — we’re not talking about GWB emails, but within the EOP system, that there had been a gap or that there had been upwards of 5 million emails that were missing. Scott and I are looking into that; we’re talking to the Office of Administration.

Now, one of the things that occurred — and we’re also trying to figure out how many emails possibly could be sent by 1,700 employees on a daily basis. I don’t know if the numbers are staggering. My inbox is staggering so — we’ll work to find that out. But there was a conversion sometime between 2002 and 2003 to convert people that were using Lotus Notes when we first arrived to Microsoft Outlook. And I know that the tech people worked to get us all transferred over. We had to save our Word documents and all to make sure that they weren’t lost in that transition.

I don’t have a specific number for you. Again, I wouldn’t rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we’ll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

And in addition to that, I think one of the things that we’re talking about here, when you’re asking about double-delete and what were the motivations, that is separate and apart from what we’re talking about here, which is no one — no person that was actually doing official government work or talking to any other outside groups or to the media would have known that their files would have — that some of the emails would have been inadvertently lost in a transition of conversion of a technical sort.

Q Dana, can I follow up on that real quick. So this allegation about the 5 million missing emails refers only, as you understand it, to this 2002-2003 time period?

MS. PERINO: I don’t know the time period. I’m saying 2002-2003 because that’s when I worked at CEQ, and that’s when I know that I got — I moved from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook. We’ll get the dates for you. It was a rolling system in order to make sure that people weren’t disrupted from their work.

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