Milt Romney's Aides Erased Emai Records Before He Left Office

[Havakasha]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/17/1037360/-Mitt-Romneys-aides-erased-email-records-before-he-left-office?via=blog_1

THU NOV 17, 2011 AT 08:00 AM PST
Mitt Romney's aides erased email records before he left office
byJed Lewison

Mitt Romney's staff hit the delete button on public email records

Looks like the Mittness Protection Program began long before the 2012 presidential campaign:
Just before Mitt Romney left the Massachusetts governor’s office and first ran for president, 11 of his top aides purchased their state-issued computer hard drives, and the Romney administration’s e-mails were all wiped from a server, according to interviews and records obtained by the Globe.
Romney administration officials had the remaining computers in the governor’s office replaced just before Governor Deval Patrick’s staff showed up to take power in January 2007, according to Mark Reilly, Patrick’s chief legal counsel.

As a result, Patrick’s office, which has been bombarded with inquiries for records from the Romney era, has no electronic record of any Romney administration e-mails, Reilly said.

“The governor’s office has found no e-mails from 2002-2006 in our possession,’’ Reilly said in a statement. “Before the current administration took office, the computers used during that time period were replaced and the server used during that time period was taken out of service, all files were removed from it, and it was also replaced.’’

The missing emails are a serious issue, but the most amusing thing about this episode is that Romney's campaign is claiming this whole issue is a dirty trick generated by President Obama.

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said the governor’s aides did nothing wrong. [...] She accused Patrick of “doing the Obama campaign’s dirty work’’ and called it one in a series of “political attacks to distract from Obama’s horrible record on jobs.’’
Obviously, that's entirely illogical. Romney and his team deleted the emails. Then the media sought access to them. And now Patrick's office is explaining why the emails are unavailable. Nowhere does President Obama enter into that equation.