The CDC has likely been violating federal law for years by systematically deleting lower-level employees’ emails, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras came in a lawsuit brought by a legal group allied with former President Donald Trump and was accompanied by an order forcing the public health agency to immediately halt the erasures.
“The Court concludes that CDC’s policy and practice of disposing of former employees’ emails ninety days after the end of their employment is likely unlawful,” Contreras wrote in a 36-page opinion.
Contreras, an Obama appointee, found that the agency had been employing a records-retention policy that had not been approved by the National Archives. That policy led the agency to delete lower-level employees’ emails 90 days after their departure from the agency, rather than the three-to-seven-year retention required by standard National Archives procedures.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member