The Fenty administration routinely destroyed official e-mails, throwing thousands of public records into the electronic garbage pile even as the city council was drafting legislation that would have prevented it, a top city official has admitted under oath.

In late 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty tried to give himself the authority to destroy electronic records every eight weeks. After hearing months of outrage from government watchdog groups and facing emergency legislation that would have forbidden the practice, Fenty announced that he was withdrawing the proposal early last year.