From the USA come further evidence that the bureaucracy there is out of control and above the law. I suspect the same is the case here in the UK. The story revolves around Chris Horner's ongoing attempts to get hold of correspondence of senior staff within the Environmental Protection Agency and in particular their text messages. The response of officials seems to have been wholesale deletion of the relevant records, directly flouting data retention legislation.
...they are destroying them, illegally. This isn't a "gaping open-records loophole," it is wanton lawbreaking because the law is quite clear.
The texts EPA produced on Friday prove that EPA's IT system does not automatically delete text messages; that is, for messages not to be there now, they had to be deleted from the system.
These texts also show that not everyone destroyed all of their messages, as McCarthy has admitted she did. Her behavior was deliberate, serial and flagrant.
Congress is doing nothing; the Justice Department is doing whatever it can to ensure the lawbreaking goes unpunished. It is therefore down to the courts to enforce the law.
I'm not holding my breath.