Judge orders obstruction of justice hearing over missing White House e-mails

By CNN Producer Ted Barrett

July 20, 2000
Web posted at: 6:46 p.m. EDT (2246 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal judge has ordered an evidentiary hearing later this month into whether White House officials made false statements to the court or tried to obstruct justice during an investigation into missing White House e-mails.

The order for a July 31 hearing came from U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who is hearing a civil suit involving the e-mails brought by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch.

Critics of the administration have accused the White House of trying to delay the recovery of the e-mails until after the November election because some of the messages might pertain to the ongoing campaign finance investigation of Vice President Al Gore. The White House denies the allegation.

If Lamberth finds evidence that obstruction occurred, he could refer the case to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation or choose to assess various civil penalties himself, according to Georgetown University law professor Paul Rothstein.

Larry Klayman, the lead attorney for Judicial Watch, said he expects to call White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, Office of Administration Director Mark Lindsay, and other White House officials as witnesses at the hearing.

The White House says the obstruction matter has already been thoroughly investigated.

"This matter was fully reviewed in Congress," White House spokesman Elliot Diringer told CNN. "We're confident the evidence shows that there was no intention to withhold documents or engage in any of the other improper activities alleged."

Lamberth wants to hear testimony about an affidavit filed by Daniel A. Barry -- a White House employee who oversaw the e-mail archive system -- that Judicial Watch says is false. Barry stated that all White House e-mails beginning in July 1994 had been archived in the White House database.

His statement came a month after other White House officials acknowledged certain incoming e-mails -- perhaps hundreds of thousands of e-mails -- were not being archived as of August 1996 due to a computer glitch.

"EOP (Executive Office of the President) apparently corrected this 'computer error' in November 1998, but never notified this court and never started a project to retrieve the e-mails" until Judicial Watch filed a complaint in February, 2000, Lamberth wrote.

The judge is weighing whether to appoint a special master to oversee the reproduction of the e-mails from back up tapes. The White House retrieval effort has been plagued with technical problems it says have prevented any of the e-mails from being reproduced.

Lamberth recently called the White House retrieval effort "preposterous." He also wants to hear evidence about allegations from former White House computer technicians who have said White House officials threatened them with jail if they revealed the existence of the e-mail problem.

Lamberth had held off on the evidentiary hearing because the Justice Department's Criminal Division Campaign Finance Task Force was conducting its own investigation into the matter.

In his order, Lamberth wrote that Justice Department said that an evidentiary hearing could proceed "without threatening the integrity of the criminal investigation."