Oregon governor tries to delete emails, instead creates paper trail suggesting cover-up

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) announced his resignation on Friday in the midst of an ethics scandal involving his fiancée. While the prospect of losing the top office in the state might be enough to convince most people to shape up, not so for Kitzhaber, who apparently spent his last few days in the governor's mansion attempting to destroy thousands of emails.

The emails in question were in Kitzhaber's personal email account, but since previous personal emails have discussed official business, Willamette Week reports, they likely could be obtained by state and federal investigators with a FOIA request. However, Kitzhaber outsourced his plan to destroy the evidence to his executive assistant, who used her work email — automatically subject to public record requests — to try to get the emails destroyed on Feb. 5.

The sketchiness of this request immediately raised red flags for the staffers she contacted, and their emails added to the paper trail of Kitzhaber's apparent cover-up attempt. Kitzhaber's camp says there was "no blanket order to delete all records and the emails are in the process of being sorted to determine which records are public records that are required to be kept," and maintains that the request, which was ultimately unsuccessful, was perfectly routine.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up