Perhaps the most Byzantine of all Bush-era records scandals draws a step closer to ending today with the announcement by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive that they have reached a settlement with the White House in the matter of millions of emails that went without proper archiving from 2002-2005.
As the Archive points out in its summary of the case, that was a period of time including many, many, many major events in Bush administration history:
Early 2002 was the peak of the Afghanistan war, just as special forces troops were being shifted to plan for what ultimately became the war in Iraq. Roundups and renditions after 9/11 were reaching their peak as well. March 2003 was the month of the invasion of Iraq. The following two and a half years would include the revelations of Abu Ghraib, the rise of the insurgency in Iraq, the 2004 elections, Hurricane Katrina, an investigation into the disclosure of the covert CIA status of Valerie Plame, and the allegedly political firing of United States Attorneys.
Read the National Security Archive’s summary of the settlement here.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.