What makes it juicy? The guy representing the U.S. Government, defending its right to destroy all these emails, was none other than the mustachioed John Bolton, who, 16 years later in 2005, was perhaps the warmest personality to ever be nominated for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The Senate wouldn't confirm him as ambassador, in part due to Bolton's claim in 1994 that "There is no such thing as the United Nations." He also stated, according to The Washington Post, "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Even so, while Congress was in recess and couldn't legally argue the matter, on August 1, 2005, Bush II appointed John Robert Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Permanent Representative. He lasted as Permanent Representative for a little over a year.

Back in 1989, this same John R. Bolton was an assistant Attorney General. It was Bolton who sat at the defense table, trying to make sure the government had a right to destroy Reagan-era email messages.

At 6:10 pm, on the eve of Bush I's inauguration, Judge Barrington D. Parker issued a Temporary Restraining Order, prohibiting the destruction of the backup tapes to the Reagan-era PROFs system. The National Security Archives managed to keep those email messages from being destroyed, but it began a court battle that lasted through all through the term of Bush I.

Flashback: Bush I administration (1989-1993)
Most of us remember the four years of the first Bush administration. It was a busy time. Operation Just Cause deposed Manuel Noriega as dictator of Panama. With 25,000 troops, the Panama invasion was the largest American troop movement since Vietnam.

After Saddam Hussein invated Kuwait, Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm bookmarked the first Iraqi war, knocking Hussein out of Kuwait, but stopping short of deposing the Iraqi leader -- in retrospect, probably a smart move.

The Soviet Union was falling apart, and President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev declared a strategic partnership at a summit in 1991. Much of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was negotiated during Bush I's tenure.

Perhaps most controversial of all were two key themes: the U.S. economy was hurting and Bush I pardoned six Reagan officials implicated in Iran-Contra.

As it pertains to email, not much new happened in the first Bush administration -- at least until the very end. For the full four years, the case between the government and National Security Archive was processed through the U.S. District Court and the U.S Court of Appeals.

At the end of 1992, when Bush I lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Richey granted a motion to include the Bush I White House email backups in the case. In January 1993, Richey ruled that email had to be treated like other government records. This treatment includes coverage by law, management by archivists, and preservation.