Report: Blunt misled public on e-mails

• Tweet

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt's administration misled the public on several issues, including whether e-mail records were saved, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The newspaper said Sunday the governor's office has issued misleading statements on a host of issues during the past year. The report said Blunt's staffers falsely claimed the administration did not regularly conduct state business out of public view on campaign e-mail accounts.

The Post-Dispatch said evidence of the misstatements is contained in more than 60,000 pages of e-mails that were turned over last week to three news outlets, including the Post-Dispatch, which sued for the records.

The media outlets sued for access to the records to determine whether the governor's office was violating state laws that require the state's business to be done in public.

"The newly released e-mails portray a staff caught off guard by news outlets' queries and unable to determine whether the governor's office even had a policy on public record retention," the newspaper said.