This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The U.S. government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been involved in some of the biggest health scandals in years.

It's been involved in recommending the controversial HPV shots, as well as promoting LGBT ideology. And then it was caught up in the maelstrom of the COVID shots, which actually injured tens of thousands of Americans.

And now its reputation has taken another major hit, with a judge's determination it was breaking the law by deleting information that should have been kept for government records.

Politico reported the ruling from U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras found that the agency probably has been violating the law for years by deleting employees' emails after they quit their jobs.

The decision came in a lawsuit brought by America First Legal Foundation, which pursued a Freedom of Information Act request for records about an LGBT-promoting publication by the CDC.

"After months of wrangling, the CDC identified three employees who worked on the document but indicated that two of them had departed the agency and their emails had likely been destroyed," the report noted.

The judge ordered the agency to halt such erasures immediately.

The ruling, by the judge appointed by Barack Obama, said, "The court concludes that CDC's policy and practice of disposing of former employees' emails ninety days after the end of their employment is likely unlawful."

He said the agency's practice of destroying emails was not approved by the National Archives.

Government records normally must be kept for periods ranging from three to seven years.

"The available evidence suggests that CDC did indeed commit to manage and dispose of its employees' emails pursuant to the [Capstone] schedule," Contreras wrote. "Because CDC disposed of former employees' email records pursuant to a schedule that was not approved by the Archivist, it is likely that … records removed or deleted under the CDC's unapproved policy were removed or deleted unlawfully."

"The Biden-Harris Administration was actively destroying the records of federal employees at the CDC in blatant violation of the law — and we are pleased that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered a stop to their illegal conduct," said America First Legal's executive director Gene Hamilton.