The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has cleared Governor Rick Scott and his transition staff of any wrongdoing related to the loss team’s transition emails. The investigation led to the recovery of more than 30-thousand pages of documents, which are now available online.
Generally the emails an elected official sends and receives between the time he is elected and the time he takes office are counted as part of the public record. But most of the Scott emails were lost when his transition team closed the email accounts. The Florida Department of Law enforcement, which Scott asked to investigate the matter, ruled the move was unintentional and not done maliciously. FDLE spokesman Keith Kameg said the investigation lasted ten months.
“It resulted in us reviewing thousands of pages of documents and the governor’s office has been very helpful to FDLE, providing us everything we ask for," Kameg said.
And the governor’s spokesman Lane Wright said recovering the documents took some pretty tedious efforts.
“A lot of these are pages and pages. I mean, I think there literally would be boxes and boxes of documents. I mean it’s 33-thousand and I think there’s maybe more still," Wright said.
Wright said the governor’s transition team tracked down documents in any way they could—looking for printed versions, checking with other people they might have forwarded the e-mails to, and working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an electronic forensic search. The FDLE got involved in the investigation when Scott asked the agency to look into the matter after members of the media and the First Amendment Foundation made public records requests for a number of the governor’s transition documents. Barbara Petersen is the President of the First Amendment Foundation in Florida. She said the FDLE’s finding doesn’t change the fact that Scott’s e-mails never should have been missing.
“You know, FDLE has found there was no intent to violate the law, but we have still found that we still have a retention requirement,” Petersen said.
At the time the Scott e-mails went missing, the requirement that transition emails be made available for public records requests, was part of case law. Since then legislators have passed a measure specifying that the governor elect as well as the lieutenant governor and members of the cabinet’s transition e-mails fall under the state’s public records law. And Petersen points out it’s a measure the governor supported. But Petersen said really, she’s just happy the investigations are over the materials are going to be up online.
“It’s taken a long time, and I’m glad that we’re finally getting, at least most of the transition team records. I mean we’ve been trying to get these records for over a year now. So, I’m glad its over and I’m glad that the governor is putting those emails online on Project Sunburst and he’s providing the First Amendment Foundation with a copy as well," Petersen said.
And, Wright, Scott’s spokesman, said any member of the public can access the documents on the state’s website, Project Sunburst. by going to the web address flgov.com/suburst. Links to the documents and the FDLE report are both on the front page.
And Wright said the cool thing is the documents themselves are searchable. He said he thinks the governor’s willingness to post these documents online highlights Scott's commitment to transparency. The First Amendment Foundation says they plan to post the files on their site as well.
