Remember when the Bush administration conveniently “lost” 5 million emails? Two public interest groups responded by suing the administration for its “knowing failure to recover, restore and preserve millions of electronic communications created and/or received within the White House.” Bush’s people, of course, spent the remainder of their time in office trying to get the lawsuit dismissed.

And now that Obama’s people are in charge, they’re doing the same thing:

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.

Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush’s eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration’s bid to get the lawsuits dismissed. [...]

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.

The Justice Department ”apparently never got the message” from Obama, Blanton said.

Because, you know, transparency in government is for the other guys.