EPA's Browner: I Meant to Delete Video Games, Not Evidence
newsmax.com
Sunday July 1, 2001; 12:55 a.m. EDT
Former Clinton Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner told a federal judge this week that when she ordered her computer's hard drive wiped clean on Jan. 19, it was to delete her son's video games, not to destroy evidence sought by the Landmark Legal Foundation in its lawsuit against the agency.
"It didn't seem appropriate to leave behind a computer with kids' games," Browner told the court, without explaining why she'd let her son play with her government-owned computer, which, presumably, had some very sensitive information on it.
Might some of that now deleted information have been documents detailing agency contacts with groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, who were pushing then-President Clinton to sign new super tough environmental regulations as he headed out the door?
That's what Landmark was trying to find out when it sued for the documents last year under the Freedom of Information Act. On Jan. 19, as the Clinonites were closing up shop, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the EPA to preserve all records pertinent to Landmark's lawsuit.
Coincidentally, says Browner, she picked that very day to erase her computer's files. The ex-EPA chief's lawyer said Friday that she didn't learn of the judge's order till it was too late.
Of course, that excuse won't work for two other top Clinton EPA employees, who wiped their hard drives clean two weeks later.
Must have been that pesky Browner kid again, clogging up their hard drives with his video games. |
