As TPM reported recently, emails sent and received by Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) transition team were accidentally deleted, apparently in violation of state standards. But it wasn’t clear when they were deleted, or how.
Now the Miami Herald reports some new details: Scott’s transition team knew the emails were missing as early as March. Rackspace, a private company handling the emails, notified the transition team that no records existed from almost all the accounts that had been closed, including Scott’s, the Herald reports. Scott has said he only learned within the past couple weeks that the emails couldn’t be recovered.
Chris Kise, a lawyer who helped oversee the transition, was aware of the missing emails, according to the report. He contacted Rackspace in the months after Scott’s election. In June, Kise concluded the emails couldn’t be retrieved and he notified Scott’s team in August. Kise did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.
Scott did not tell the Herald when he learned of the troubled email access. “I know they’ve been working on making sure they can find them,” he said. Scott’s office also did not immediately return TPM’s requests for comment.
From the Herald:
According to documents provided to the newspapers, Harris Media staffer Amy Brown wrote an e-mail to the transition team on Jan. 26 that all accounts would be closed by the end of the month. “You will no longer have access to your email inboxes, contacts and messages at that time,” Brown wrote. “Please take time the rest of the week and weekend to copy any of the data you will need from those accounts.”
Kise said the transition team wasn’t aware that meant the emails would be deleted.
Read more here.
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
Disqus Conversations
Click here to read the Disqus Commenting FAQ.