Lack of money won't halt Missouri e-mail archive system

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Matt Blunt's administration is forging ahead with a plan to archive state e-mails -- even though lawmakers have not approved the money needed to run it.

Blunt tapped into existing state money in January while ordering the installation of a $1.6 million computerized system to permanently retain government e-mails.

But the budget passed Tuesday by lawmakers does not include the $500,000 Blunt requested to operate the e-mail archive starting in July.

House Budget Committee chairman Allen Icet, R-Wildwood, said he left the money out of the budget because he didn't consider the e-mail retention system a high priority compared with other state services and programs.

Blunt's administration commissioner said officials will operate the e-mail archive anyway, even if it means taking the money from other parts of the budget.

"We feel we are obligated to do it and will have to find the money from the core" budget for the Office of Administration, said administration commissioner Larry Schepker.

Final House and Senate approval of the state's computer technology budget came just one day after the Republican governor was sued by investigators appointed by Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon. That suit claims Blunt or his top deputies ordered the destruction of the state's current backup e-mail tapes last fall to avoid complying with an open-records request from The Associated Press.

The old e-mail tapes were not destroyed, however, because two computer technology supervisors refused to go along with directives, the lawsuit alleges.

Under the e-mail retention system in place at the time, computer technology employees saved backup tapes for about 60 days before reusing them.

When the AP filed an open-records request Oct. 31 seeking backup e-mail files for Blunt and several governor's office employees, a computer system supervisor set aside the backup tapes so that they would not be taped over, the lawsuit says.

But Blunt or his top deputies passed along a desire through a chain of command for the e-mail tapes to be placed back in the regular rotation to be taped over, the lawsuit claims.

When employees refused to do so, Blunt or his deputies instead ordered the e-mails to be extracted from the backup files "to determine the level of political damage that would likely occur as a result of the release of the e-mail transmissions in compliance with the Sunshine Law request," the lawsuit alleges.

Blunt's office has declined to confirm or deny whether it sought to destroy the e-mail backup tapes. Instead, spokeswoman Jessica Robinson has criticized the lawsuit as politically motivated because Nixon is running for governor -- an assertion denied by the investigators who filed the lawsuit.

During Tuesday's budget debate, Rep. Jeff Harris of Columbia publicly praised the two unnamed employees who refused to follow the alleged instructions to destroy the backup e-mail tapes.

Harris, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, later vowed to continue the investigation into the governor's office if it is not resolved when the next attorney general takes over in January. Another attorney general candidate, Rep. Margaret Donnelly, D-St. Louis, made a similar pledge Tuesday.

"It makes you wonder just what was in these e-mails that needed to be destroyed," Harris said. "The whole thing has a strange odor about it, and we've got to get to the bottom of it."

The AP filed its Sunshine Law request shortly after former governor's office attorney Scott Eckersley claimed he had been fired for raising concerns that Blunt's staff may have violated the Sunshine Law by deleting some e-mails.

Acting on a tip from a confidential informant about Blunt's alleged directive, Nixon appointed his investigative team Nov. 15 -- the same day Blunt announced plans for an improved archive retention system that would allow e-mails to more easily be saved and searched for Sunshine Law requests.

Without gaining access to the old backup tapes, the attorney general's team said it cannot fully complete its investigation of whether Blunt employees wrongfully deleted some e-mails.

The backup tapes also could help confirm or deny assertions that governor's office employees sent politically oriented messages over state e-mail accounts, or whether Eckersley actually raised concerns about e-mail deletions as he claims he did.

Eckersley sued Blunt and several past and current staff members in January, claiming he was wrongfully fired and defamed by Blunt's administration.

Shortly after that, Blunt announced he was not seeking re-election, though he denied the decision was related to allegations of e-mail deletions in his office.