Roughly 60,000 pages of Blunt Administration emails have been released and as reporters continue to comb through them, a “smoking gun” has yet to be found, although there is evidence that support former Blunt legal counsel Scott Eckersley’s claim that he was fired shortly after cautioning his colleagues that their defense of e-mail deletions ran contrary to state law.

The Associated Press reports:

But the e-mails also confirm that Scott Eckersley performed private-sector work with state resources and was repeatedly late to work, two factors cited in his dismissal. Blunt officials have claimed Eckersley never raised concerns about their e-mail practices and was fired for justifiable reasons.

The roughly 60,000 pages of e-mails released under a legal settlement with the media put focus on the assertions of Eckersley, who went from being praised by his bosses to banished from the office in a matter of weeks — just as he was raising red flags about their handling of e-mails.

An analysis of the e-mails was conducted as a collaboration of the AP, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Star, all of which had submitted Sunshine Law requests about a year ago seeking Blunt administration e-mails culled from Missouri’s computerized backup system.

Both sides argue that the ton of documents vindicates their claims:

Eckersley’s attorney, Jeff Bauer, said Friday that the newly released e-mails confirm his client’s account that he was fired after raising concerns to top Blunt aides about their e-mail policies.

“It is a sentinel event which shows you everything he’s been saying from day one is absolutely true and everything they have said is absolutely false,” said Bauer, who declined to let Eckersley comment.

Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson said the e-mails reinforce the position of Blunt’s administration about Eckersley’s dismissal, noting that none said Eckersley was fired for raising concerns about the e-mail policies.

“The reason for his firing had nothing to do with the Sunshine Law or the record-retention law, and his e-mails bolster what we had said and our contention that he was dismissed for poor job performance and doing outside work on a state computer and on state time,” Robinson said.

But in the release of tens of thousands of emails from the governor’s office, still unfound is any one “smoking gun” that threatens to land anyone in jail or explains Blunt’s surprise exit from his re-election campaign.

Time will tell, as reporters continue to look over the mountain of documents, if Missouri gets an Illinois-sized scandal anytime soon.