The Bush administration is claiming it will meet a legal requirement to hand over millions of emails it’s long claimed to have lost. A government lawyer made the announcement at a hearing in a suit brought by civil liberties groups seeking the emails’ public release. The announcement came hours after a District Court judge ordered White House employees to search their hard drives for the missing emails, dated from 2003 to 2005. One of the plaintiffs, the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says the government’s claim to have recovered the emails should be verified independently. Another ruling is expected soon in a suit seeking to force Vice President Dick Cheney to hand over his personal records. Cheney says he should decide what gets publicly disclosed.