There is a lot of rhetoric flying around about scandal, cover-up, Hatch Act violations, etc. in the most recent firestorm in our 24 hour news cycle society – the White House is having trouble getting their hands on emails requested by Congress.

Let’s put aside any discussion of political cover-up/opportunism, Presidential power privilege/abuse, or even if something illegal was done for a second and understand that what the White House is experiencing is the same thing corporate America is dealing with every day.

Just ask Morgan Stanley how easy it is to ensure you can quickly and readily get your hands on archived emails even when you are suppose to be able to do so by law:

Morgan Stanley Muddles Through An E-Mail Mess

Court overturns $1.6 billion ruling against Morgan Stanley

Regulator Says Morgan Stanley Withheld E-Mail in Cases

Morgan has a pretty clear standard to meet spelled out by SEC 17a-4 requirements. The situation with the RNC emails is a little less clear. As this story from the LA Times points out, the RNC has an established policy of automatically erasing most email after 30 days.

Now, I’m not expert on the Presidential Records Act so we’re going to have to leave that to the really smart clever lawyers on the Republican and Democrat side of the aisle to slug out and claim respective victory when the dust settles on this one.

What’s playing out in the headlines is what we see everyday within the four walls of companies where, even in the absence of an official inquiry or investigation, there is a significant challenge in getting at sent/received emails. This is due in part to a lack of understanding from those that are asking for them and significant technical challenges on those that are charged with getting them.

It may be easy for you to go to your inbox and find an email, but until you try sifting through months and years of emails for thousands of employees stored in various locations and formats that include everything from vacation pictures to system alerts to newsletters you will not truly appreciate the nature of this problem.