Delete or destroy evidence once, shame on the individuals (maybe). Delete or destroy twice, shame on the system. Here in West Virginia, the system appears to be dangerously broken. Hot on the heels of news that evidence was intentionally destroyed by the state Department of Homeland Security’s Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, we learned attorneys for the state Department of Health and Human Resources admitted deleting the emails of several prominent former department officials being sought in a class action lawsuit over the state’s foster care system.

In fact, rather than turn over emails either sent or received after September 2020, DHHR instead reported THREE YEARS worth of emails had been deleted.

“(DHHR) and other defendants deeply regret — and apologize to plaintiffs and the court — that certain electronically stored information potentially relevant to this litigation was not preserved despite Defendants’ reasonable efforts to do so,” wrote attorney Philip Peisch with the Brown and Peisch law firm in Washington, D.C., and Steven Compton with the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office.

The litigation in question is a lawsuit filed by attorneys representing 12 foster children, alleging those children’s rights were violated by DHHR officials.

What an enormous gap in both policy and training, if officials leading our state’s agencies don’t know any better than to have three years’ worth of electronic communications destroyed … after receiving several discovery requests from the plaintiffs’ attorneys during that time.

It is difficult to believe not a single person involved — in either case — didn’t think to themselves. “We should probably hold on to these.”

But if the understood policy of the administration as a whole is opacity and silence, those leading individual agencies probably believed they were doing what was expected rather than what should be avoided.

It is shameful proof that the federal officials and others from outside West Virginia who believe our bureaucrats and elected officials are not to be trusted might be correct.

What a pitiful way to approach the 10-year mark of the sweeping political change in the Mountain State that was supposed to root out precisely what we see unfolding now.

We can only hope responsible, principled elected officials and others in positions of power in Charleston look at the behavior of these two agencies as an example to wipe out, rather than one to follow.