WASHINGTON – The White House acknowledged Wednesday that e-mails dealing with official government business, possibly including missives related to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended to be used for political activities.
Administration officials said they could offer no estimate of how many e-mails were lost, but indicated that some may involve messages from White House senior adviser Karl Rove, whose role in the firings has been under scrutiny by congressional Democrats.
Democrats have charged that Rove and other officials may have used the private accounts, set up through the Republican National Committee, in an effort to avoid normal review. Under federal law, the White House is required to maintain records, including e-mails, involving presidential decision-making and deliberations. White House aides’ use of their political e-mail accounts to discuss the prosecutor firings has also fanned Democratic accusations that the actions were politically motivated.
Briefing reporters Wednesday about an initial review of the private e-mail system, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to discuss whether the political aides were driven by a desire to conduct business outside of potential review. “I can’t speak to people’s individual e-mail practices,” he said.
Stanzel conceded that the White House had done a poor job of instructing staff members how to save politically oriented e-mail and said that it has developed new guidance for the more than 20 staffers who have official as well as political e-mail addresses. He also said that the White House is trying to recover the lost e-mails.
“The White House has not at this point done a good enough job at overseeing the practices of staff with political e-mail accounts,” Stanzel said. “Some officials’ e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake that the White House is aggressively working to fix.”
The controversy over the outside e-mail accounts is a byproduct of the ongoing showdown over the prosecutor firings, emerging after the administration recently provided to Congress e-mails from some White House officials that had been sent from their RNC accounts. Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, used a “gwb43.com” e-mail account last August to discuss the replacement of Bud Cummins, who was dismissed as the U.S. attorney for Arkansas, according to one e-mail.
The heads of the House and Senate judiciary committees, which are investigating the prosecutor firings, wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding on March 28 asking that he preserve any e-mails written by White House employees from non-government e-mail addresses.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
