22 Million E-Mails Missing From Bush White House Found

The groups - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the National Security Archive - said yesterday that they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

It will be years before the public sees any of the e-mail, because it will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records.

Former Bush White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said that the 22 million e-mail messages had already been recovered while Bush was still in office and that misleading statements about the former administration's work demonstrate "a continued anti-Bush agenda, nearly a year after a new president was sworn in."

"The liberal groups CREW and National Security Archive litigate for sport, distort the facts and have consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues," he said in a statement.

Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW, said the 22 million e-mail messages "would never have been found but for our lawsuits and pressure from Capitol Hill."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.) said the Bush administration had been dismissive of congressional requests that it recover the e-mail.