White House won't give timetable on lost e-mails, judge says By GREG TOPPO, Associated Press WASHINGTON (July 17, 2000 6:08 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A federal judge accused the White House on Monday of failing to tell him how long it would take to restore thousands of lost Clinton administration e-mails. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the White House never told him that revised estimates for the project were vastly different from what administration lawyers had reported in a lawsuit in the case. White House officials earlier this year said thousands of e-mails, including some from Vice President Al Gore's office, were not properly archived. As a result, the messages were never reviewed by White House lawyers to determine if they should be turned over to investigators under subpoena in cases ranging from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Whitewater to campaign fund raising. Lamberth, who is holding hearings to determine how to retrieve the messages and get them to investigators, has heard testimony since Thursday from a handful of current and former White House computer technicians. On Monday, he angrily criticized the administration for failing to notify him earlier that a series of unsuccessful computer tests in the project have delayed it, resulting in estimates that range from a few months to several years. "You weren't going to admit that until it was drug out of you in this hearing," Lamberth, a native Texan, told Justice Department lawyer James Gilligan, who is arguing the case on behalf of the White House. Gilligan is representing the Executive Office of the President in the case. Lamberth also complained that the White House couldn't give him a firm figure on the number of computer backup tapes that must be searched for missing e-mails. "How does the number keep growing every day?" he asked Gilligan. Gilligan replied that administration officials didn't mean to mislead the judge, but said supervisors were struggling to manage the complex e-mail case. Judicial Watch, the conservative group that has brought the $90 million class action lawsuit, has accused the White House of dragging its feet to delay retrieval of the messages until after the presidential election. The group also maintains that the White House intentionally hired consultants with little expertise in restoring the data to delay the investigation. Judicial Watch has even offered to conduct a test of a computer system that wasn't chosen, maintaining that it would be 10 times faster than the one the government is using. Lamberth didn't immediately rule on the proposal. He planned to hear more testimony later this week. The White House last April told the judge it could deliver results within 170 days - a figure quoted at the time by White House counsel Beth Nolan at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee. Since then, technicians testified, they have tested three computer systems, all of which failed to produce acceptable results. A fourth system was approved only last Thursday, and workers have begun using it to copy backup tapes of the e-mails. So far, the new system has produced two unacceptable copies and two more that are being reviewed by the FBI. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, could appoint a special master to oversee production of the e-mails or order another company to perform the reconstruction. 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