WASHINGTON - A White House computer consultant told a federal judge Thursday that technicians have begun retrieving the first of thousands of lost e-mails, which are the subject of a civil lawsuit against the Clinton administration.
''Copying is now under way,'' testified Terrence Misich, an Army chief warrant officer who is overseeing the project. He said a searchable database of the e-mails should be ready in four weeks to six weeks and blamed earlier delays on poor copier systems.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is presiding over the case brought by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, scheduled more pretrial testimony Friday in a hearing aimed at finding the best way to get the messages to investigators.
In testimony Thursday, two former White House computer consultants said workers could have retrieved the lost e-mails in a matter of months if the White House had committed enough resources.
White House officials earlier this year said thousands of e-mails, including some from Vice President Al Gore's office, were not properly archived and were lost because of a computer glitch.
As a result, the messages were never reviewed by White House lawyers to determine if they should be turned over to investigators under subpoena in cases ranging from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Whitewater to campaign fund raising.
Misich said that despite months of work, technicians could not reliably retrieve the e-mails until now because they could not find the proper equipment to do the job.
Former White House computer worker Sheryl Hall, testifying earlier on Judicial Watch's behalf, estimated it would take four months to six months for about five workers to restore the thousands of lost e-mails. She said workers could have begun producing the files in a matter of days, given the proper tools.
Betty Lambuth, a second former computer consultant, testified that the job would take as long as four months.
Because of an apparent programming error, incoming e-mail messages dating back to August 1996 were not searched in response to subpoenas by the Justice Department and congressional investigators.
Congress, Independent Counsel Robert Ray and the Justice Department are investigating whether the e-mail problem was an innocent mistake, as the White House contends, or part of an effort to obstruct their investigations into the Lewinsky scandal and the White House's gathering of the FBI files of past Republican appointees.
The White House denies any wrongdoing.
House Republicans say the White House has dragged its feet in solving the problem and threatened technicians who revealed the glitch.
Judicial Watch attorney Larry Klayman, who argued the case, told Lamberth that the White House may have intentionally hired consultants with little expertise in restoring the data in order to delay the investigation.
The court hearing took place as Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., urged White House counsel Beth Nolan and Attorney General Janet Reno to support appointment of an outside expert to supervise the e-mail effort.
Burton said the House Government Reform Committee, which he heads, ''has no confidence that the White House will satisfy its obligations to produce information in a timely fashion.''