White House: E-mails may have been lost

WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that it might have lost what could amount to thousands of e-mails sent through a private system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.

The e-mails were considered potentially critical evidence in inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics might have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The White House said an effort was under way to determine whether the e-mails could be recovered from the computer system, operated and paid for by the Republican National Committee (RNC) as part of an effort to separate political communications from 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 teleconference with reporters. "We may not have preserved all e-mails that deal with White House business."

He refused to estimate how many e-mails might have been lost, but the system was used by dozens of officials over more than six years.

"This is a remarkable admission that raises serious legal and security issues," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the role of electoral politics in administration policy-making. "The White House has an obligation to disclose all the information it has."

The e-mails were sent through a communications system created in conjunction with the RNC. Rove and others were given special laptop computers and other communications devices to use instead of the government communications system when dealing with political matters.

The parallel system was designed to avoid running afoul of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for partisan purposes, White House officials have said.