If the Obama administration decides to go after Bush administration officials, it will have better ammunition since a federal court judge last week ordered all Bush White House employees to surrender media that might contain e-mails sent or received from March 2003 until October 2005.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the Bush White House to “search the workstations, and any .PST files located therein, of any individuals who were employed between March 2003 and October 2005, and collect and preserve all e-mails sent or received during that period.

Also, the Executive Office of the President must “issue a preservation notice to its employees directing them to surrender any media in their possession — irrespective of the intent with which it was created — that may contain e-mails sent or received between March 2003 and October 2005, and . . . collect and preserve all such media.”

What’s that mean? Legal analysts say it means that Bush White House staffers will have to turn over their memory sticks, CDs and DVDs as they walk out the door and that White House IT personnel will have to go computer-to-computer to download files.

Why? Because the Bush administration has been under fire since a 2005 analysis identified a period of more than 700 days during which the number of White House e-mails were either unrealistically low or nonexistent.

A number of lawsuits have been filed to locate missing e-mails or to get a logical explanation of why there weren’t any communications happening during the period. Could it be that the administration had just gone on a collective vacation? Or were they just not on speaking terms with anyone?

The Obama administration hasn’t shown much interest in prosecuting Bush administration officials for wrong-doing during the past eight years. But that could change if this new court order turns up some evidence of lawbreaking that can’t be ignored.

Tags: court order, e-mail, judge, messages, White House