Your Morning Coffee Spill For 12/15/09: Bush Emails Won't Be Release Until 2022

Protecting your predecessor continues(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

May you not spit out anything at your computer screen after you read this. One of the few pieces of good news yesterday has now turned so damn laughable, it should be given its own half hour show on HBO.

But if you think the news means we're finally about to get the full story on the Valerie Plame leak, or the deliberations that took us to war in Iraq, think again. Many of the roughly 22 million emails secured through the deal likely won't be made public until 2022. And even the ones that can be released sooner won't see the light of day for around three years.

The emails will be turned over to the National Archives, where they'll be treated, initially at least, as presidential records, Anne Weismann, a senior lawyer for CREW, one of the groups that had sued over the emails, explained to TPMmuckraker. That means that, under the Presidential Records Act, they won't be made public for five years. But President Bush has broad latitude to direct the Archives to keep them secret for an additional seven years -- indeed, he may already have done so. Given the former president's record on issues of openness and transparency, it's a good bet he'll opt to do so. The administration or the Archives could challenge that directive, arguing that Bush's reasons aren't spelled out in the law. But, said Weismann, it's very unlikely that either would do so.

You probably didn't make it this far in this article, but also....

However, some of the emails -- those from an agency like the Council on Environmental Quality, rather than from a political adviser -- may soon be designated federal, rather than presidential, records. That would mean, said Weismann, that they'd likely be made public in about three years, after the National Archives has processed them and prepared them for release.

And to be honest with you, we will be lucky to even see them in 2022.

The game of "protect your predecessor" continues.