EPA’s McCarthy Defends Deleting 5,998 of Subpoenaed 6,000 Emails

[rush transcript]

POSEY: “Just before my time runs out. Did I hear you say -- did I hear this correctly, that of the 6,000 messages you received or sent on your government-issued BlackBerry and your government-issued iPhone, that only one or two of those were official business? Did I hear that correctly?”

MCCARTHY: “Only one or two of those were actually records under the Federal Records Act that should be preserved. Now there were exchanges about I’m late for this meeting or that. Those are transitory, and those are not to be preserved. That’s how the Federal Records Act works because they're not substantive. The two substantive ones that I knew about I preserved.”

POSEY: “So, from over out of 6,000 you only had two substantive transmission out of 6,000.”

MCCARTHY: “We highly discourage through policy the use of mobile devices for the very reason that we need to make sure that we're preserving records. So we highly discourage it, and frankly, I do not use, to my recollection, I only started using texts because my kids wouldn't answer my phone calls.”

POSEY: “Did you receive or send any messages to any special interest groups interested in environment from your iPhone or your BlackBerry out of 6,000 of them, in five years, never once, never once, you telling us, ever once sent a substantive message or received a substantive message from a special interest group pertaining to the environment, is that correct?”

MCCARTHY: “To my recollection, the two that needed to be preserved were preserved.”

POSEY: “Just -- you can say yes or no.”

MCCARTHY: “I don't -- that's my best answer.”

POSEY: “You cannot tell me that you never received any other substantive message or sent one to --”

MCCARTHY: “Are we talking about text message?”

POSEY: “Anything from your BlackBerry or your iPhone.”

MCCARTHY: “E-mails would have come in, but those are preserved.”