White House computer technicians have found 22 million e-mails that were believed to have been lost during President George W. Bush's administration, according to the Associated Press.

The discovery was announced Monday by the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which filed lawsuits against the Executive Office of the President, or EOP, over the e-mails in 2007.

The two groups had initially filed a Freedom of Information Act request for e-mails in the wake of a scandal involving the Justice Department, which had fired U.S. attorneys around the country in an apparent political bid to rid the department of prosecutors who didn't adhere to the White House's conservative agenda. The missing e-mails were also potentially crucial to the investigation into the Valerie Plame–CIA leak scandal.

The groups eventually filed lawsuits after the EOP revealed that it had lost about 5 million e-mails from its servers between January 2003 and July 2005, because the e-mails had not been archived properly per the Presidential Records Act. Among other things, CREW sought records about the EOP’s e-mail management system, about retained and missing e-mails, and about any audit reports that might have revealed potential problems with the e-mail system.

The newly discovered e-mails were apparently mislabeled and were recently uncovered by contractors hired by the White House. The e-mails will eventually be made available to the public, after they are archived through the National Archives and Records Administration.

Photo: Marine One and two escort helicopters approach the landing area on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., Aug. 17, 2009.

Official White House Photo/Lawrence Jackson

See also: