A federal judge has provided a setback to efforts by the Bush administration to avoid requests to recover and preserve e-mails and other electronic communications. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., ruled earlier this week that a lawsuit may proceed against the White House seeking the recovery of scores of administration e-mails and other electronic communications. White House attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, which was lodged by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive. Judge Kennedy, however, ruled that provisions of the Federal Records Act do not preclude such a lawsuit. “This is a major victory for the public interest in accountability at the White House,” said Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs in a press statement about the decision.

In a recent ACS Issue Brief, Fuchs noted that historians and political scientists regard presidential records as providing invaluable information in analyzing and understanding governmental policy and that “over the last eight years, there have been a series of moves by the current Administration that may ensure that records of the White House and the federal offices and agencies that work closely with the White House will not be available for historians.”

The entire article, “The White House: Off Limits to Historians?” is available here.

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