White House ‘reused e-mail tapes.’

AP reports:

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide. […]

If the e-mails were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal records or presidential records.

Some of the comments at ThinkProgress.org:

• Cover-up. What does the WH have to hide?
• Its nice to see the WH has a recycling policy.
• Uh-oh… looks like someone’s going to get a sternly-worded letter…
• Those tapes are expensive. Gotta balance the budget somehow!
• The Dem’s aren’t going to do a damn thing about it except let the clock run out, my guess many of them are not just enabeler’s but just as guilty..
• Wow ! Someone in the WH staff came up with a very clever idea. Guess all the sharp pencils haven’t left yet.
• So the next question should be, “Who made the decision to reuse the tapes?” Of course, nobody will remember… My best hope is that the person who is ultimately picked to be thrown under the bus for this one will decide it’s not worth protecting these criminals, and start talking fast and furious. In this instance, conditional immunity might be a worthy consideration, if it leads up the ladder quickly.
• Erased tapes. Where have I heard that one before? Will we get pictures of Nixon’s secretary again.
• Interesting thing is that the way the WH’s admission that it “re-used” tapes is an absolute admission that not only did it violate the law — it did so with the intent required to prompt a criminal investigation. After all, in this era of high computer technology, who reuses tapes or discs or other recordable media instead of using new ones — unless they’re (a) too poor to afford new ones, or (b) trying to cover up something that’s on the originals?
  Just get it over with — throw these crooks in jail so we can get on with restoring our country.
• Gee, that’s exactly what happened to all the records of the Presidential election in Ohio in 2004. What an incredible coincidence!
• Don’t our patriotic friends over at AT&T have all the needed e-mails? They’ve been intercepting/storing all electronic traffic since early 2001 haven’t they? Maybe if we offer to pay the FBI’s bill for them they’ll let us have copies of all those missing WH e-mails. They should at least have access to the e-mails that were sent using the RNC servers.
• Impeachment is “OFF THE TABLE” because we Democrats don’t have the spine to stand up and protect our Constitution even though we swore to protect and defend it from ALL enemies Foreign and Domestic.
• Incompetence is a lousy excuse for criminal destruction of records, and it is not acceptable. There must be accountability. They have defied the law and congress, they have dissed the public - and all for their own purposes.We should not be surprised, however, not at their deliberate incompetence, nor their deliberate obstructionism, not at their defiant attitude of “so whaddya gonna do about it now?”John Dean is right - this group is far worse than Watergate/Nixon White House. Impeachment is too good for them. Criminal court is more appropriate.
• Next thing they’ll tell us is the internet is a series of tubes…