Minutes to midnight

Is anyone surprised that the White House overwrote its email backups? Wake up Rip Van Winkle.

Let's add it up:

• They revealed this at the last possible moment...
• only when directly ordered to...
• despite missing emails being an issue in several investigations.
• They studied absent emails in secret...
• but won't release the study they're being sued to release...
• because, they claim, they (conveniently) think it's not reliable.

From the Washington Post's (better) coverage:

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) told the National Archives in a letter last month that White House officials had told his investigators they found "numerous days with few or no emails for certain White House components" during a 2005 review of White House computer servers.

"More than two years after this problem was first discovered by White House staff," Waxman said, "the White House still has not identified the cause of the problem, determined the volume of emails lost, or developed a plan for restoring those emails that were lost."

In a related controversy, House investigators have determined that hundreds of thousands of e-mails from former presidential adviser Karl Rove and other White House aides are missing because they were sent using external accounts set up by the Republican National Committee.

The White House is run by scofflaws.

Ain't I sweet? I could have called the Bushists a criminal conspiracy...