A federal judge has ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) likely engaged in unlawful practices by deleting emails of low-level employees after 90 days, prompting concerns from the conservative group America First Legal.
Judge Rudolph Contreras issued an injunction to stop this practice and ordered the National Archives and Justice Department to assist in recovering deleted emails.
“We just secured a preliminary injunction in our lawsuit against the Biden-Harris CDC for illegally deleting employees’ emails,” one post read.
“The National Archives and Attorney General Garland must now work to recover illegally deleted records and make CDC comply with the law,” the post added.
The ruling highlights that while senior-level employee emails must be retained permanently, those of lower-level employees should be kept for seven years.
America First Legal criticized the Biden administration for destroying federal records in violation of the law, further fueling distrust among conservatives towards the CDC amid its controversial handling of records and public health policies.
“The Biden-Harris Administration was actively destroying the records of federal employees at the CDC in blatant violation of the law — and we are pleased that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered a stop to their illegal conduct,” American First Legal executive director Gene Hamilton said. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s politicization of records management must end.”
