Next president to inherit e-mail problem.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

The Associated Press (AP) obtained an internal White House document revealing that the White House is missing potentially 225 days worth of e-mails, and recovery of the records will not likely be completed by the end of President George W. Bush's term.

The document, from the White House Office of Administration, is an invitation for firms to bid on the recovery of the e-mails. The White House IT staff has estimated that as many as five million e-mails were lost between 2003 and 2005. The document estimates the work will not be complete until April 2009, three months after a new administration takes over.

The White House told the AP the document was "outdated and seriously inaccurate," but it has refused to respond to media inquiries about the status of its efforts to recover the data.

"With an eye on the dock, the White House continues to drag its feet and do everything possible to postpone public access to the records of this presidency," said Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Wasington (CREW), a government watchdog group that has followed the matter closely.

In June, a federal judge ruled that unlike most parts of the federal government, the White House Office of Administration is not required to...