Next up, she attempts to answer the Judge's question about hard drives in possession or custody of the EOP. Here, one of her statements seems bizarre, specifically:

Like security specialists elsewhere, between March 2003 and October 2005, OA did not have an established asset management process, which would have included activities such as tracking hard drive assignments within each EOP component.

She further obfuscates by stating in a footnote:

Until recently, security specialists did not have access to rigorous standards and policies covering IT asset management.

What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Seriously, is Payton really claiming that IT security specialists didn't have access to asset management techniques? This is pure crap. I remember, even back in one of my earliest Silicon Valley jobs in the early 1980s, we did asset management on all the computer gear. We stuck those little numbered tags on everything, recorded them, and documented them with care. And that was 25 years ago.

So let's be clear here: The White House claims it can't keep track of old hard drives because asset management for computers parts wasn't invented until sometime after 2005.

That's just specious. Dang.

So here's the problem. That is just a completely non-credible statement. Given it's complete lack of credibility, how can we take any other statements in her third declaration as credible?

In any case, let's get back to Ms. Payton's declaration. She was also asked to explain what backups were or were not preserved.

According to Payton's declaration, there were 438 "disaster recovery back-up tapes" that were "written to" between March 1 and September 30, 2003. However, she goes on to say:

At this juncture, based on our due diligence, and according to the disaster recovery back-up tape system, the earliest date on which data was written on any of the 438 tapes is May 23, 2003; the latest that data was written was September 29, 2003.

Unfortunately, we don't know the capacity of these tapes, so we can't get a feel for just how much might be on them. And, from reading her statement carefully, it becomes clear that she's claiming no information for the period between March 1 and May 23, 2003.

Of course, March 2003 is also the month in which the U.S. began its invasion of Iraq. In April, U.S. forces seized control of Saddam International Airport and then control of Bagdad. And, in May, President Bush climbed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln under the banner "Mission Accomplished".

So, David says sarcastically, there was nothing going on between March 1 and May 23, 2003 for which we might want to preserve any records. Oopsie! In fact, these were critical months in our recent history and the lack of records is incredibly disturbing.

But let's take a few moments and leave the world of judges and CIOs and see what good our illustrious Congress Critters can do for the situation.