20 Federal employees have either lost or destroyed emails related to Congressional investigations

Yesterday it was learned that some of the emails the House Oversight Committee was asking to see from Marilyn Tavenner of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services might have been deleted.

She claims that because her email account is open to the public she has been receiving thousands of emails and has had to forward them to her assistants to help her deal with the volume.

“Therefore, she receives an extremely high volume of emails that she manages daily. To keep an orderly email box and to stay within the agency’s email system capacity limits, the Administrator generally copied or forwarded emails to immediate staff for retention and retrieval, and did not maintain her own copies.”

Apparently during this process it appears as if emails relevant to the investigation into the Obamacare roll out (which is a waste of time in my opinion, what is going to be accomplished by this?) might have conveniently been deleted as well.

“It is possible that some emails may not be available to HHS,” the letter stated.

Of course Federal law requires copies to be made but apparently that did not happen, and according to this article, that brings the number of people who are witnesses in the investigations who either lost or destroyed emails up to over 20.

“The Obama administration has lost or destroyed e-mails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said of Tavenner’s lost e-mails.

Here is what Darrell Issa had to say in part:

“It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails,” he continued. “Just this week, my staff followed up with HHS, who has failed to comply with a subpoena from ten months ago. Even at that point, the administration did not inform us that there was a problem with Ms. Tavenner’s e-mail history. Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered.”

It takes a willing suspension of disbelief to believe that all of this was an accident, or an inconvenient (for the investigations) truth if you prefer. My question to Darrell Issa is, to quote Mr. Blonde in the movie Reservoir Dogs; Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?