1 Boring Old Man

Investigators Eye Broader White House Email Trail

Last week, Justice Department documents turned over to a Congressional committee investigating circumstances behind the selective firing of seven US attorneys revealed that some Bush administration officials have primarily used email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to conduct official White House business. This appears to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The revelation that White House staffers used outside email accounts to conduct administration business comes on the heels of a report in the National Journal alleging that Karl Rove uses an RNC email address to conduct a majority of his duties as White House political adviser.

Now Congressional investigators are taking a second look at public corruption cases it closed the books on. They’ll try to determine if current and former White House officials were more deeply involved in scandals than previously known, and if so, whether administration officials used outside email accounts to cover up their involvement in cronyism or other malfeasance.

>Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, intends to get to the bottom of the issue.

Citing Congress’ investigation of White House contacts with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff as an example of apparent misuse of outside email accounts, Waxman is seeking the deposition of Susan Ralston regarding communication she had via email with Abramoff. Ralston is a former assistant to White House political adviser Karl Rove. The questioned emails between Ralston and Abramoff concerned official White House business conducted through Ralston’s RNC email address, according to documents released by Waxman’s committee.

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In letters sent last week to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign, Congressman Waxman urged the two groups to preserve all emails sent by White House officials from their servers, because of their relevance to Congressional probes, including the US attorney scandal.

"I am writing about email records in the possession of the Republican National Committee. Congressional investigations have revealed that White House officials have used nongovernmental email accounts, including those maintained by the RNC, to conduct official White House business," Waxman’s letter states. "The Committee has questions about who has access to these email records and how the RNC protects them from destruction or tampering. The Committee also directs you to preserve all such records because of their potential relevance to Congressional investigations."

Waxman added that emails released by the Justice Department in connection with the US attorney probe appeared to demonstrate that White House officials were using their RNC email accounts to circumvent the archives system.

We often comment on their arrogance – their feeling of being above the law. But it goes further than that. They actually seem driven to live in the loopholes; to create loopholes where none were previously known; and if possible, find some secret way to break the laws outright. In the last post, I evoked that complex psychiatric diagnosis – "bully." But there’s another diagnostic category that also comes to mind – "criminal."