restoring history

The story of those millions of thought-missing-but-now-recovered Bush-era emails (see here and here for the backstory) is told here at Mother Jones. Nick Baumann writes, "Some of the recovered messages could potentially shed light on controversies such as the lead-up to the Iraq war and the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity:"

In perhaps the biggest win for the plaintiffs, the restoration effort will not be limited solely to the records that were the subject of the lawsuit. The Obama administration has offered to recover presidential records--including those from the office of former Vice President Dick Cheney--that the court had ruled the plaintiffs had no legal standing to sue over.

[...]

The White House has agreed to continue to hand over documents detailing archiving problems during the Bush administration. The settlement also includes an agreement to release a joint document outlining the email archiving steps the Obama administration has taken to ensure that it won't repeat the Bush administration's mistakes.

The Bush administration's archiving mistakes might appear minor, but not if they shed shed some long-overdue light on more of their high crimes and misdemeanors. The press release from co-plaintiff CREW states that "Documents produced so far show the Bush White House was lying when officials claimed no emails were ever missing. The record now proves incontrovertibly that Bush administration officials deliberately ignored the problem and, in fact, knowingly allowed it to worsen:"

Melanie Sloan, CREW's Executive Director, said, "We may never know exactly what happened to all the missing emails, and which Bush administration officials were involved in the coverup, but we do know the American public never got the full story." [...] Sloan continued, "The Obama administration, which inherited the lawsuits and the dysfunctional White House email system, has done a terrific job straightening out the mess. Thanks to the Obama White House, a critical part of our nation's missing history will be restored. This is yet another example of the administration living up to its promise of accountability and transparency."

Much more, however, remains to be done.