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White House e-mails 'missing'
19/06/2007 07:23 - (SA)
Washington - Karl Rove and dozens of
other White House staffers appear to have illegally routed
official e-mails through a Republican group that subsequently
deleted them, a congressional report said on Monday.
By using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for
official business, senior White House aides may have broken a
law requiring them to preserve presidential records, the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in an interim
report.
"This should be a matter of grave concern for anyone who
values open government and the preservation of an accurate
historical record," said committee Chairperson Henry Waxman, a California Democrat.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires White House
officials to save official correspondence. While the White
House automatically archives its e-mail the RNC typically
deletes messages on its server older than 30 days, the report
said.
The White House and the RNC said Waxman's committee was
jumping to conclusions.
"We have seen a number of times right now where people have
been putting together investigations to see what sticks.
They have had very little success so far," White House
spokesperson Tony Snow said.
White House officials have for years used RNC e-mail
accounts to comply with the Hatch Act, which forbids public
servants from using government property to conduct political
business.
Rove thought messages were being archived
At least 88 White House staffers had RNC accounts and there
are signs that many of them used those accounts extensively for
non-political matters, the committee said.
Rove, a top political adviser to President George W Bush,
sent more than 100 e-mail messages and received more than 200
each day through his RNC account in 2007, the report said.
More than half of the 140 000 Rove messages saved by the
RNC was correspondence with other government officials, the
committee said. Most of his correspondence from Bush's first
term has not been preserved, it said.
Rove thought his messages were being archived, his former
assistant Susan Ralston told the committee. His lawyer has said
he never intentionally deleted e-mail from any accounts.
The RNC said it is still searching for the missing
e-mails.
"There is no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not
already found would be of an official nature," RNC spokesperson
Tracey Schmitt said by e-mail.
The report also points a finger at Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales, currently facing pressure to resign over US
attorney firings that Democrats say were political in nature.
As White House counsel, Gonzales may have known that Rove
and others were using RNC accounts but did nothing to stop it,
the report says.
A Justice Department official referred questions to the
White House.
The committee said it will investigate Gonzales' role
further and search federal agencies for copies of the missing
e-mails.
It also said it plans to subpoena Bush's 2004
re-election campaign for additional e-mails because the
campaign has not co-operated.
- Reuters
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