Key Bush aides' e-mail may be lost
WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.
The e-mails were considered potentially crucial evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
The White House said an effort was underway to see whether the messages could be recovered from the computer system, which was operated and paid for by the Republican National Committee as part of an avowed effort to separate political communications from those dealing with official business.
"The White House has not done a good enough job overseeing staff using political e-mail accounts to assure compliance with the Presidential Records Act," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in an unusual late-afternoon teleconference with reporters.
As a result, Stanzel said, "we may not have preserved all e-mails that deal with White House business."
He refused to estimate how many e-mails may have been lost, but the system was used by dozens of officials for more than six years.
"This is a remarkable admission that raises serious legal and security issues," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the role of electoral politics in administration policymaking. "The White House has an obligation to disclose all the information it has."
The missing e-mails not only add to the growing legal and public relations woes for the White House and Rove's political operation, but also to the problems of Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. Gonzales, who is under fire for the handling of the U.S. attorney dismissals, was serving as White House counsel at the time the Republican National Committee's parallel communications system was set up.
His office had at least partial responsibility for establishing ground rules for using the private system.
The White House briefing Wednesday occurred a few hours after the staff of Waxman's committee and staff of the House Judiciary Committee met with White House officials to discuss the e-mails.
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- Year's Worth of Gore's E-Mail Lost Due to Backup Breakdown Jun 09, 2000
