On December 14, 2009, the National Security Archive (the “Archive”), represented by Jones Day, entered into an agreement with the White House outlining the terms upon which the Archive would agree to dismiss its September 2007 lawsuit to restore more than 22 million missing emails from the Bush Administration.

Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, the defendants - - the Executive Office of the President, the Office of Administration, and the National Archives and Records Administration - - are required to produce thousands of pages of information for public dissemination regarding the loss of the emails and the defendants' failure to take action in the face of this loss; satisfy the Archive that the current email system at the White House is in compliance with the Federal Records Act; and restore millions of emails identified during the lawsuit as missing from the former Administration’s archival system.

The completion of these obligations by the Defendants will result in the restoration of over 22 million emails that were previously missing from the historical records of the Bush Administration. Emails will be restored from 94 historically important days identified by the Archive during the lawsuit to have missing emails – including days ranging from the decision to invade Iraq to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The emails will be restored from the White House back-up tapes ordered to be preserved by the Court while the lawsuit is pending, pursuant to the Temporary Restraining Order obtained by the Plaintiffs at the outset of the lawsuit.

The Archive's eight-count complaint was filed by Jones Day in September 2007 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint sought orders under the Federal Records Act compelling the Executive Office of the President and other Defendants to initiate action to recover the missing e-mails and to establish an adequate records management system for archiving and preserving White House e-mails. In November 2007, the Plaintiffs successfully obtained a Temporary Restraining Order from Judge Henry Kennedy prohibiting the government from destroying and requiring it to preserve backup tapes that may contain the missing e-mails while the lawsuit is pending. On November 10, 2008, Judge Kennedy denied the Defendants’ motion to dismiss, ruling in favor of the Archive on each of the Government's challenges to the lawsuit. On the eve of the Presidential transition in January 2009, and in response to papers filed with the Court by the Archive, Judge Kennedy extended his preservation Order to cover additional media where the missing e-mails may be located, thus preserving all available repositories for the missing emails that may have otherwise been lost during the Presidential transition. Since the Presidential transition, Jones Day has been working on behalf of the Archive with the Obama Administration to identify and restore the missing emails as well as resolve the Archive’s other claims. Those negotiations culminated in the agreement by Defendants to execute the Archive’s terms, which was signed by all parties on December 14, 2009.

The lawsuit has been widely publicized on CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, the Washington Post, the ABA Journal and the AmLaw Litigation Daily, as well as in numerous other international media and trade press.