Jessalyn Raddack

My "fatal career mistake" when I worked at the Justice Department was resurrecting e-mails after the hard-copy file of smoking-gun documents had been purged in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh. I did this back on March 7, 2002, when I learned of a federal discovery order that had been deliberately concealed from me, and for which I had authored responsive documents. I found that the e-mails necessary to comply with the discovery order had been purged from the office file. I resurrected the missing e-mails from the bowels of the computer archives with the help of tech support, provided them to my boss, resigned, and took home a copy for safekeeping in case they "disappeared again."

So when the White House says that e-mails dealing with the U.S. Attorney massacrre may have been lost, I say nothing is ever really "lost" when it comes to e-mail. I learned the hard way because I was punished unmercifully (criminal investigation, fired from my new job at the government's behest, referred to the state bars in which I'm licensed, and put on the "no-fly" list) for recovering the information that, not coincidentally, helped to tank the Lindh case.