Mo. governor's office is overcharging for e-mails, lawsuit claims

A special investigative team set up by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon is suing to force Gov. Matt Blunt and the state’s custodian of records to release state government e-mails for free after the governor’s office attempted to charge $540,940 for them, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report.

The lawsuit also claims that Gov. Blunt’s then-chief of staff and other high-ranking state officials ordered that backup tapes of the e-mails be illegally destroyed, but that two supervisors defied that order and maintained the tapes.

By now attempting to charge for the release of the e-mails, the governor’s office claims the dollar figure attached reflects the 14,620 hours of staff time needed to accommodate the document request.